


Like A Rabbit In Headlights

by baozisdragon



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Alpha Lee Minhyuk, Alpha Son Hyunwoo, Alpha Yoo Kihyun, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - College/University, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Emotional Abuse, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Not Finished / Incomplete Fic, Omega Chae Hyungwon, Omega Im Changkyun, Omega Lee Hoseok, Omega Lee Jooheon, Personal Growth, Popular/Not Popular, Trust Issues, bad past relationships, non-sexual heat, really just Alpha/Omega though
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-30
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:14:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 29,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23384356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baozisdragon/pseuds/baozisdragon
Summary: It's a week out from Hoseok's next heat, just seven chilly days at the tail end of fall, and he's sort of panicking.
Relationships: Lee Hoseok | Wonho/Son Hyunwoo | Shownu
Comments: 30
Kudos: 104





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> firstly, in this universe heats are totally non-sexual. they are simply very painful/uncomfortable (think pms 2x), and are calmed by alpha's scents/pheromones, not their knots
> 
> secondly, this fic is not complete and very likely never will be. at the very least it will be a good long while before a final chapter. but there are around 30k words done and ready, and given the showho drought recently i thought i might as well post what i have in installments. please enjoy~

It's a week out from Hoseok's next heat, just seven chilly days at the tail end of fall, and he's sort of panicking.

For the first time since he'd left home all those years ago, he will be without an alpha to help see him through it. Kihyun, his first choice, is back at home for the Chuseok holiday break, and Minhyuk is courting a new transfer student, seriously enough that Hoseok doesn't want to make him disappear for a week to come and deal with him in all his mid-heat neuroses.

He knows Minhyuk would, if he asked, and that's what makes him keep quiet. He's seen the way he lights up whenever he talks about Jooheon, how he can ramble on for days about how cute the sulky omega is. He deserves to have someone in his life he can dote on and love, so Hoseok makes a promise to himself to stay out of it and let him be happy.

Unfortunately, this leaves him alphaless.

All of his other close friends are omegas, and, while he loves their comforting scent and warm influence on any regular day, his heat week is different.

Like all other omegas, he's always been dependent on an alpha to ease the pain and discomfort his heat brings, though a bit more so than his friends growing up. Ever since his first heat as a teenager, his mother has always taken the week off work, and spent it holding him on the couch, making him drink ice water and soothing him while he whimpered and cried. After he'd left for college, and met Kihyun, the younger alpha had gladly taken the position. He would hold Hoseok whenever asked, pumping out pheromones and calming the fire as it consumed him and muddled his mind. Then he'd been paired with Minhyuk for a class project, and the squirrelly alpha had wormed his way into Hoseok's life, grinning the whole way. The first time he'd spent a heat week with Hoseok, he'd started crying as soon as Hoseok had. His empathetic nature had made him feel just as strongly as Hoseok, and the two of them had spent a whole seven days snuggled on Hoseok's bed, eating ice cream and watching period dramas.

But now, Hoseok is alone. His heat is fast approaching, and he's already feeling the effects of it. He wakes up each morning with a slight headache, and despite the chill outside, he's abandoned his scarves and heavier jackets at home, knowing he'll sweat through them before the day is over.

As each new symptom reveals itself, his stress mounts, higher and higher. Enough so that his friends are starting to notice it.

"Hyung, are you alright?" Changkyun asks, looking at him with a quirked brow over the top of the book he's reading.

Hoseok gulps, and tries for an innocent face. Distantly, he hopes his scent repressors are working despite the strain he must be putting on them.

"Of course," he says.

He knows how he must look. The cafe they're seated in is a small one, one he and his friends frequent both for the pastries and for the even distribution of presentations working behind the counter. His foot is tapping restlessly against the floor, and his fingers are fiddling absentmindedly with the zipper on his light coat.

Changkyun shoots him a look.

"Are you sure? Because if I didn't know any better..." He trails off, face pinched, and grabs for his phone. He checks the date, and his eyebrows draw together. 

"Hyung, are you about to start your heat?"

Hoseok's resolve crumbles.

"Changkyunnie, I'm scared," he squeaks, unable to stop himself.

Changkyun instantly drops his book to the table and scoots his chair in, reaching over to clasp Hoseok's hands in his own. He looks startled at the warmth radiating from them.

"What's wrong? You still have a couple days, are you in pain already?"

Hoseok shakes his head. He's not to that point yet, though the soft waves of concern Changkyun is sending him unconsciously do something to calm him.

"I don't have an alpha," he whispers, embarrassed.

"What?" Changkyun asks, tilting his head like a puppy. "What about Minhyuk hyung? He's not going home for break, right?"

Hoseok nods, but his hands are still tight little fists covered by Changkyun's.

"No, but he's in the middle of a courtship, and it's going well, and I don't want to give Jooheonnie a bad impression by stealing his alpha for a week."

Changkyun looks annoyed, but also resigned.

"You're being dumb, but I know I can't change your mind."

Hoseok pouts at that, but stays quiet. A terse moment passes, before Changkyun seems to make up his mind, and open his mouth.

"You know, you could always do what Hyungwon hyung and I do," he says hesitantly.

Hoseok gulps. He'd been afraid that Changkyun would say that.

Changkyun and Hyungwon, as two of the more private omegas he's met, use a service provided by the university, available for all omega students, free of charge. They'd explained it to him once as basically a 'Rent-An-Alpha' amenity, where the Department of Omega Welfare will send an alpha student volunteer to spend a heat with any omega without an alpha available.

Hyungwon and Changkyun have nothing but nice things to say about it, but Hoseok... has his reservations.

"I've never spent my heat with an alpha I don't know!" He stage whispers, cheeks starting to glow.

Changkyun just looks at him sympathetically. He knows Hoseok's reasons, was there for them, even. But even he doesn't know everything, and Hoseok's not about to bring it up in the middle of a busy cafe to try to make a point.

"It's not as bad as you think, hyung, and you have nothing to be embarrassed about. The alphas that volunteer know what they're signing up for, they put them through a background test and make them take special classes and everything." He sighs, and squeezes Hoseok's hands. "Really, what other option do you have?"

The answer to that is none.

His only alpha friends are unavailable, and he can't afford a plane ticket home to be with his mom. He knows what he has to do. He just really, really doesn't want to.

But Changkyun is looking at him with round eyes, so worried for him, and he hates putting that look on his face.

Heaving a sigh, he tries to will away some of the pink creeping down his cheeks.

"Can you help me?" He asks quietly.

Changkyun physically deflates some, the tension in his body flowing out as it's replaced with relief.

"Of course, hyung."

As it turns out, the process of signing up for the program is incredibly simple. He accompanies Changkyun to the OW office, wearing a face mask to cover his blotchy red cheeks. He picks up an application form from a chirpy omega girl behind the counter, and fills it out on his knees, stuffed into one of the tiny chairs along the wall. Changkyun sits beside him, pointing out where to sign and what questions are required to answer.

He flushes at a few of them, and shields the paper from view as Changkyun politely turns to face the other way.

His hand is shaking minutely as he hands the paper back to the girl behind the counter, but she's polite enough not to mention it.

"You should get an email tonight with information about your alpha, we'll send the both of you each other's contact information so you two can get to know each other a bit before you meet! Any questions?"

"No ma'am," Hoseok says quietly, and he and Changkyun head back out into the blustery chill of the late afternoon.

"That wasn't so bad, was it?" Changkyun asks, jostling Hoseok where their arms are looped together.

Hoseok is still pink, but he shakes his head no.

"And don't tell me you're not at least a little bit excited to meet whoever they pair you up with?"

Hoseok goes pinker. He's been trying not to think about it, if he's being honest. Trying, but not succeeding. He can't help but size up every alpha they pass on the way back to Changkyun's dorm, wondering if they're a part of the program, if they'll be who helps him through his most vulnerable moments.

"A little, yeah."

"That's the spirit! I've even kept in contact with a few of the ones who I've met through this stuff, they're all nice! You know Hyuna noona?"

Hoseok nods.

"Both her and her boyfriend are volunteers, she's helped me twice now and we still go out for lunch together sometimes."

This actually does help loosen something up within Hoseok, unraveling, just a bit, the knot of tension behind his heart. He has met Hyuna before, she's a TA in his vocal performance class, and she's bubbly and sweet and kind of a badass, in an unintimidating way.

Changkyun changes the subject after this, smoothly carrying Hoseok's thoughts away from his impending heat and the stranger he'll be spending it with. He talks about his coding class and how the professor is only a year older than him, and about how Hyungwon had fallen asleep into his breakfast in the campus diner the previous morning. Hoseok lets himself get lost in the cadence of Changkyun's voice as they walk, happy to let his mind go blank for just a little while more.

He gets an email notification only a few hours later, halfway through eating his dinner at home. Any calm he'd been feigning evaporates immediately.

"Was that an email?" Changkyun asks, perking up, stir-fried noodles still dangling from his mouth and into the open take-out box in his hand.

Hoseok's gulp is answer enough.

"Open it!" Changkyun slurps up his bite fast enough that sauce flecks his glasses, and rushes to press up against Hoseok's side. "Let's see who you got!"

Hoseok's hand shakes minutely as he directs the cursor to click on the blinking pop up. His email opens quickly, and at the top sits a new one, the Department of Omega Welfare's official seal taking up most of the screen as he clicks on the link.

There's a wealth of information in it, a full two paragraphs that he should probably read through eventually but he's too preoccupied at the moment, blinking in shock at the sentence in bold at the bottom, just above an unfamiliar phone number.

"Hyung, does that say..." Changkyun voice betrays shock on par with Hoseok's.

Hoseok just nods dumbly.

**Volunteer Son Hyunwoo is happy to help!**

Son Hyunwoo.

“Maybe there’s another alpha with the same name?” Hoseok ekes out.

“Scroll down, hyung,” Changkyun says dazedly. 

Hoseok does so, and feels faint when he reveals the attached school i.d. photo that tells them no, it’s exactly who he’d feared.

The school's champion athlete, mathematics genius, and all around most eligible alpha. The entire student body's dream man. That Son Hyunwoo.

"Holy shit," is breathed out, and it takes a moment for Hoseok to realize that it was him who said it.

"Holy shit is right!" Changkyun says, sounding much too excited. "Oh my god, hyung, this is the best thing that's ever happened to me!"

"It's not even happening to you though?" Hoseok almost whimpers. He's still not fully processed what he's read. Son Hyunwoo, who he's exchanged maybe three sentences with his entire tenure at this school, who has flocks of omegas and alphas following his every move, who even has a damn fan page dedicated to him online, is going to come and spend a week in his apartment, alone, cuddling and letting Hoseok scent all over him.

This can't be happening.

"Semantics," Changkyun says flippantly. "The point is, you get golden boy all to yourself for seven beautiful days of domestic bliss, and I'm not letting you ruin it by overthinking."

Hoseok begins protesting, but Changkyun mimes zipping his lips, and he falls silent. He just sinks down further into the couch, and lets his laptop slide off his lap onto the cushion beside him. His spicy pineapple chicken sits forgotten on the coffee table. He's suddenly lost his appetite.

Changkyun leaves not long after, kissing Hoseok on the cheek and making him promise not to stay up all night fretting.

Hoseok breaks the promise almost as soon as the door clicks shut behind him.

He flips his phone back and forth in his sweaty hands after he plops back onto the couch, eyes zeroed in on the digits beneath Hyunwoo's name, still glaring at him from his glowing laptop screen. He knows at least a dozen people that would pay to have this number, and now he's gotten it sent to him for free, in bold type no less.

This doesn't feel real.

Hoseok has seen Son Hyunwoo on campus before, stepped around him in the crowded library and passed by him on the way in or out of the wellness center a couple of times. Even so, the extent of their verbal interactions only go so far as Hyunwoo once asking Hoseok if he was going to take the last bowl of rice from behind him in line at the cafeteria, Hoseok saying no, and Hyunwoo smiling at him like he'd just proposed marriage before snagging it and walking off. He knows next to nothing about him as a person other than the fact that he's polite almost to a fault, and that he eats like a horse. With the size of the following he has, Hoseok can't imagine him being a nasty person, or mean-spirited, but some parts of him still sing with nerves.

He's been proven wrong about many alphas in the past, and he's not too keen on repeating these experiences, especially with someone that has the power to make his campus life even more hellish.

Sighing, Hoseok heaves himself up and starts cleaning up the mess of his dinner, sealing the lid to leave it in the fridge for tomorrow and wiping up stray rice grains and sauce puddles. When he stands up from hunching over the table, he has to take a step back, and steady himself against the couch to combat the wave of dizziness blurring his vision.

It's a bracing reminder that no matter what may come from it, he and Son Hyunwoo are not only going to have to meet, but also coexist very, very closely for a full week.

Being more of a glass-half-full type, Hoseok can only hope that Son Hyunwoo proves himself to be the man, and the alpha, that the entire school thinks him to be.

Two days pass, and Hoseok hasn't so much as looked at his phone since the night he'd gotten the email. He'd put the number in his phone after hours of deliberation, but left it locked since.

He's chided by basically his entire friend group, even getting a very sharply worded message from Kihyun through Hyungwon, who reads it to him through peals of laughter. Changkyun, having been the one to snitch on his predicament to everyone, found great pleasure in watching Hoseok get scolded by the tiniest alpha they know.

Despite all this, Hoseok still hasn't reached out to Hyunwoo.

He can't bring himself to do it. Besides, the employee at the program's office had definitely said that their contact information would be shared both ways, so why should he be the one to initiate anything? If Hyunwoo had gotten his number, he's surely capable of dialing it himself.

Hoseok knows that he's behaving childishly, but can't find the courage to do anything about it.

So, like always, his conniving little friends find it for him.

Once Hoseok comes back home after class to find Minhyuk, Changkyun, and Hyungwon huddled in a row on his couch and looking up at him like puppies about to be punished, his chest tightens like a squeaky toy between their sharp little teeth.

"What have you done," is all he can ask.

"Nothing that you shouldn't have done yourself," Minhyuk replies, holding what is definitely Hoseok's phone.

Not even wasting a moment in trying to puzzle together how they got a hold of it, he dives for it with arms outstretched. His bulk forces the three back into the cushions, but the combined power of their collectively bony limbs leave him slumped, defeated, over their laps.

Minhyuk must be feeling merciful, however, as he holds up Hoseok's phone screen to his face for him to read the message that's already been typed and sent.

_Hi, Hyunwoo! This is Lee Hoseok, we've been matched through the heat partnering program! I was wondering if we could meet up before Sunday to get to know each other a little bit? :D_

"It could be worse, hyung. Minhyuk hyung wanted to put a heart instead of a smiley face, but we talked him out of it." Changkyun says helpfully.

"Why put the smiley face at all?" Hoseok all but moans, burying his face into the seat.

"We were trying to make it authentic! You send us that face all the time."

Hoseok can only groan again, and push his face harder into the scratchy fabric, hoping to disappear. 

Before he can though, his phone dings with a new message. His face snaps up instantly as the two other omegas and single alpha all squeal like children.

"He replied already! That's such a good sign!"

"Or he's desperate," Hyungwon says under his breath.

"This is Son Hyunwoo we're talking about here," Minhyuk scoffs, and Hoseok wants to scream.

"Can I just see what he said!"

Surprised at his volume, Minhyuk fumbles the phone before he can reawaken the screen, and holds it in front of Hoseok's pensive face.

_Hello, Hoseok. Im glad you texted, I was waiting for you to message first so youd be more comfortable. Im free to meet tomorrow afternoon, I just need to get some assignments squared away with my profs for next week and then Im all yours. See you then_

Hoseok's face feels like it's boiling with the heat of the blush that floods his cheeks once he's finished reading. He's dimly aware of the giggles above his head, and the slapping of finely boned hands all over his back.

"A little lax on the punctuation-"

"But he said he's 'all yours', Hoseok! And he waited for you to make you more comfortable, oh my god he's even a sweetheart, Changkyun hold me I'm swooning." Minhyuk's theatrics go in one ear and straight out the other of all the others piled on the couch, but particularly Hoseok.

So Hyunwoo had been waiting for him to make first contact? And it was to let him feel in control of the situation?

That's... actually really sweet?

"You're free tomorrow, I already know so don't try to lie." Changkyun slaps Hoseok on the butt for emphasis, prompting him to finally lever himself off of the sharp knees he'd been draped over, to instead drape himself over the carpet.

"I should've just gotten the prescription," he mumbles under his breath. The room is suddenly very quiet.

"Don't say that," Hyungwon snaps. Hoseok flinches in his spot on the floor.

"Sorry, I know. I wouldn't. It just seems so easy right now." He knows he should shut up but he just can't seem to, anxiety keeping his traitorous tongue wagging away. "No heat, no symptoms, no stupid alpha partnering program."

"Yeah, well, it might seem that way now," Hyungwon continues, voice still sharp. "Until you have to get off it, and you get slammed with so many repressed heats at once that your brain fries in your idiot skull."

Wincing, Hoseok can only nod.

The prescription heat suppressant is the last resort for omegas with no safe access to alphas they can trust, and who can't afford the extremely expensive bottled alpha pheromone. It's effective, but makes it so that there's no outlet for the hormones that make heats happen, and leaves them to back up in the body. 

Eventually, once the omega has access to real alpha scent, or just wants to quit taking their monthly doses, those backed up hormones come rushing forth, often with dangerous results.

"He wasn't being serious, Hyungwon," Minhyuk chides softly, and Hyungwon deflates a little.

"I know," he sighs, and slumps to join Hoseok on the carpet, worming under his arm. "I just don't like thinking about it. What could happen."

Hoseok squeezes Hyungwon to his chest, hard enough to force a squeak out of him.

"I won't bring it up again, Hyungwonnie." Hoseok takes a breath, and then makes the sacrifice of his sanity to lighten the atmosphere. "Now who wants to help me figure out what to wear for tomorrow?"

Another chorus of squeals answer him, and he's dragged to his feet before he can regret befriending any of them in the first place.

That regret waits to hit him until the next day, when he's once again seated in his favorite cafe at a tall table, wearing a pair of circular frames from Changkyun and the only turtleneck he owns that has sleeves.

'You look so fucking cute, hyung.' Changkyun had gushed as he and the others had left him, blowing him cheeky kisses while he hunched further down in his seat.

Hyungwon had been left in charge of 'alpha correspondence' as they'd called it, and had been purposefully vague about whatever it was that Hyunwoo had said other than that he should be at the cafe any time in the next thirty minutes. This has Hoseok practically vibrating the chair across the floor, his nerves spiking every time the pleasant little bell above the door chimes. He's sucking down his latte without thinking, and it's gone within ten minutes.

It's when he's looking down at his cup forlornly, swilling the ice around, that he's interrupted by a butter smooth voice.

"You want another one?"

Hoseok's eyes snap up. Son Hyunwoo is standing beside the table, looking loose and relaxed in his long tan coat, oak-colored hair mussed from the wind but somehow looking perfect despite it.

"Hmm?" Hoseok replies, eloquently.

Hyunwoo smiles, and Hoseok notes specifically that it's not a smirk, but a real, overtly friendly grin.

"You're Lee Hoseok, right? I'm Hyunwoo, nice to meet you."

Stupidly, Hoseok finds it charming that he thought it necessary to introduce himself when probably every person in the building knows who he is. This makes it a little easier to take the alpha's outstretched hand and shake it.

"Sorry, yes, I am. Lee Hoseok, that is." Hoseok wants to pinch himself for stammering, but Hyunwoo's expression doesn't change.

"Good. Now, do you want another one? I'll pay."

Hoseok looks back down at the empty cup, at the ice slowly melting and diluting the last sip of his coffee into a watery mess.

"I'd love one. But here," he reaches into his shoulder bag, which he'd slung over the back of his seat. "-take this. Iced vanilla latte, please."

He hands Hyunwoo the five thousand won note he'd dug out. He's pleased when Hyunwoo just takes it with a short thanks, and heads up to the counter to place their orders. None of that classic alpha posturing when he'd taken it, no insisting on paying or getting offended that Hoseok had wanted to buy for himself.

It hadn’t been a test, not really, but Hyunwoo passes regardless.

Calming himself, Hoseok watches Hyunwoo as he waits in line, his hands in his pockets as he gazes contemplatively at the menu board on the wall. He seems very human, standing there shuffling his feet, picking a speck of lint off of the sleeve of his coat as he waits. The only thing that betrays his popularity is the group of three omega students seated a bit back from the counter, whispering behind cupped hands as they stare wide-eyed at Hyunwoo's broad back. Hoseok smiles at them, but the second they turn their curious gazes towards him the smile slips away, and he faces the empty cup in his hands once again.

Hyunwoo's back quickly enough, setting Hoseok's drink down in front of him along with the change. Hoseok tries to suss out what he ordered for himself, but it's a hot drink, and he can't see its color. He catches a faint hint of peppermint when Hyunwoo blows across the opening of the lid.

"So, Hoseok-ssi-"

"Just Hoseok is fine! We're the same age, aren't we?"

"I think we are. Okay, Hoseok." Hyunwoo smiles at him again, and Hoseok maybe kind of understands the starstruck omegas now. "Anything you'd like me to know about yourself?"

Hoseok, predictably, draws a blank. Hyunwoo must notice the discomfort creeping into his expression, as he extends a lifeline before the silence can last too long.

"I can start?"

Thankful, Hoseok gestures for him to continue.

"Well, you're the first person I'll be assisting with the program, so thanks for not rejecting me." Hyunwoo chuckles, while Hoseok tries not to let his surprise show too much.

"Really? This is the first time I've, uh, used this service as well."

"Oh, awesome!" Hyunwoo looks genuinely happy about it. "The margin of error is a lot less narrow now. We can learn together."

Hoseok resolutely does not allow his face to become flushed. What is this, a drama?

"... That was a little cheesy, wasn't?" Hyunwoo asks shyly.

Hoseok just blinks.

"I was trying to sound cool, but it just came out kind of douchey."

Hoseok barks a surprised laugh, which makes Hyunwoo's face brighten.

"I wasn't going to say anything, but yes."

"Waitta make a good first impression, Hyunwoo." 

Hoseok giggles again as Hyunwoo rolls his eyes at himself, feeling much more comfortable than he'd anticipated and swimming with relief because of it.

This smiley, disarming, kind of goofy alpha is nothing like the Son Hyunwoo he'd led himself to believe he'd be meeting today. His heart feels lighter for it.

The two of them end up talking easily, trading ice-breakers and harmless little anecdotes, ordering more drinks when they finish the ones they had. Hoseok learns that Hyunwoo knows his way around the kitchen when he shares that he himself is useless in it, and will be even more so in the throes of heat.

"Don't worry about it, I'll be able to cook for us both. I hope you can eat a lot, because I only know how to make things in 'stupidly large portions', as I've been told."

"That shouldn't be a problem," Hoseok laughs. "My friends compare me to a starving ox at least once a week."

Hyunwoo looks at him a bit then, almost appraisingly, and Hoseok is suddenly reminded of how the others had crowed about how well he fills out this sweater, how much emphasis it puts on the width of his shoulders and fullness of his chest.

"Great," is all Hyunwoo says, but it makes Hoseok swallow heavily anyway.

They eventually start discussing the actual reason they're meeting in the first place, leaving Hoseok perpetually pink-cheeked.

"You said this was your first time helping out with a heat?" He asks, curious.

"No, just my first time volunteering officially. I've helped out friends before, and both of my parents are omegas, so I have plenty of experience with how to handle it."  
Hoseok is mildly stunned. It must show on his face, because Hyunwoo smiles almost shyly, and rubs his hand across the back of his tanned neck.

"Not what you expected, I gather?"

Hoseok flushes more deeply at being caught.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to be insensitive, just, yeah. Not what I expected."

Hyunwoo laughs a little then, face opening back up.

"Yeah, most people don't. My grandma always tells me that my mom almost fainted when they found out they were having an alpha."

Hoseok nods understandingly. Same presentation couples are a bit rare given how hard it is to conceive with two omegas or two alphas, and it's even rarer for them to produce the opposite of the parent's own presentation.

This knowledge does make him feel secure in Hyunwoo's experience, though. If the man has spent his whole life with omegas, he must know what he's doing.

"Well, I think it's pretty cool." Hoseok decides to just speak the truth. He watches as Hyunwoo's smile turns a little soft at the edges.

"Thanks," he says simply.

Outside, the autumn sky is starting to darken into hues of purple and blue, and most of the patrons of the cafe have left to brave the chilly wind outside to make it home before dark. Hoseok finds himself surprised that he doesn't really want to leave yet. But they should, and they're both on the same page about it, apparently, as Hyunwoo breathes a bitten off little sigh when he catches the direction of Hoseok's gaze. The two of them clean up their table in amicable silence, Hoseok collecting their little army of empty cups as Hyunwoo shrugs back into his coat. Before he can even try to juggle the cups and grab his bag at the same time, Hyunwoo reaches behind him and takes it, slinging it over the shoulder not occupied with his own backpack.

"I'll walk you back to your place." Hyunwoo doesn't make it a question, but Hoseok doesn't feel it's a demand, either. He knows that if he put his foot down, Hyunwoo would digress. That's why he chooses to simply smile, and head for the door.

The world outside is a lot less cozy than inside the homey coffee house, even with Hoseok's elevated temperature. His hair, back to black after a long stint of crimson, flies around his head like an irritated crow in the wind. He hurriedly pulls his baseball cap from his bag where it's slung over Hyunwoo's shoulder and stuffs it on. When he looks back at Hyunwoo, his eyes are wrinkled in a handsome smile.

"You're more of a bunny rabbit than an ox, I think."

Hoseok instantly goes red, and slaps his hands over his damned ears with a frown. Hyunwoo laughs without restraint when Hoseok starts to walk off, jogging the few steps to keep pace. He nudges him with his shoulder once he catches up, and Hoseok fights to keep the smile behind his teeth from making it onto his lips.

The cafe isn't too far from Hoseok's apartment complex, and their march is mostly silent, save for the wind shuffling around dead leaves and the crunch as their boots stomp through them.

Once they arrive Hoseok waits for Hyunwoo to get a good look at the outside before taking out his key and letting them both into the warm lobby.

"My floor is omegas only, so I'll have to buzz you in tomorrow. Just text me when you get here and I'll let you in."

Hyunwoo nods with furrowed brows. Hoseok is half endeared that he's taking this so seriously, half relieved.

"What time do you want me to come over? You shouldn't be showing any symptoms tomorrow, right?"

Hoseok shrugs on a sigh.

"I might, especially the later it gets. But I should be fine on my own for most of the day, if you could just try to get here before six? I am hoping to get some good sleep in before it really hits."

Hyunwoo nods sympathetically.

"I'll make it happen. I have a couple errands to run and then I'll head over. How does kimchi jjigae sound for dinner?"

Hoseok’s face must show his enthusiasm, as Hyunwoo chuckles at him.

"I'll take that as a positive. See you tomorrow, Hoseok." 

Hyunwoo waves a little, taking a step backwards to catch Hoseok's answering salute before wishing him a good night, and stepping back out into the cold with an Austenian ruffle of his coat.

Hoseok does not stare at the door after like he wants to, well aware of the eyes of the building's gossipy old doorman on him like a hawk's.

Once he's back in his own unit, hanging his cap from a peg by the door and leaving his shoes by the rack, he lets himself fall back against the loveseat in a limp pile, yelling into his cupped hands.

Hoseok spends the next morning cleaning his apartment from top to bottom, making it fit for cohabitation. He clears off space on his bathroom countertop for Hyunwoo's toiletries, pushes some of his clothes over in the closet in case Hyunwoo wants to hang anything, and gets out every spare blanket and throw he owns. He'll be too hot to turn on the heater much over the next few days, and he wants to make sure Hyunwoo doesn't freeze.

Changkyun and Hyungwon show up some time around noon, bringing with them a smoothie from Hoseok's favorite health drink cafe and a wave of that calming, distinctive omega scent. Neither of them had taken their scent repressors that day, just so they could give Hoseok a few hours of utter peace before his heat hit. 

He's grateful enough, and currently sensitive enough, that he starts crying as soon as he notices.

"I hope Hyunwoo-ssi is ready to become a human kleenex for the next few days," Changkyun teases, petting the back of Hoseok's head as he composes himself.

"I stocked up," Hoseok sniffles. "There's like twelve boxes in the hall closet."

Silently, Hyungwon goes to grab one.

They eventually move into Hoseok's bedroom, where the three of them become a formless lump on his mattress, leant up against his headboard. Hoseok exists in a cloud of sweet smells then, happily snuggled between his friends. Hyungwon's distinguished scent can only really be compared to dark roast coffee, dark chocolate and hazelnuts; the kind of sweetness that cloys up your thought process and makes the back of your tongue feel warm. Changkyun is much lighter in comparison, something like fresh linens and washed skin coming from him, and Hoseok takes a deep breath every few seconds, just to feel his sinuses be cleansed.

It’s a few hours later that they relocate to the living room, feeling Hoseok's temperature start to rise just the barest amount, always the first symptom that hits after his senses becoming that much more sensitive. He slurps drowsily on a glass of ice water while the other two chat at each other beside him, allowing him to try and clear his head from the fog of pheromones.

"What time is Hyunwoo showing up, hyung?"

Hoseok has to think for a moment before it comes to him.

"Around six. He's making me dinner."

Hyungwon and Changkyun share a look over his tousled head.

"Well it's getting pretty close. Hyungwon and I should probably leave."

Hoseok whines a little bit, but understands enough not to start crying again. The three of them spend another good minute hugging in Hoseok's doorway, Hoseok taking just a few more deep breaths to hold that comforting omega scent in his lungs as long as he can.

Once the door is closed, however, he shakes himself off. He doesn't want Hyunwoo to arrive to him stumbling around in a daze, and so he goes to splash some cold water on his face, and run his wet hands through his hair.

Sufficiently awake now, he finishes just in time to hear a knock at his door. 

Thinking either Hyungwon or Changkyun had forgotten something he hurries to unlock it, instead opening to door to a face full of alpha scent strong enough to make him take a step back.

"H-Hyunwoo? How'd you get up here?" A wave of what reminds him of warm, spiced liquor, like mulled wine and rum, makes him stumble over his words.

"Your friends were leaving right as I got here, they held the door for me and got the doorman to buzz me up. Is that alright?"

Hoseok is nodding before he's even finished speaking, and moving aside to let him in.

Hyunwoo is dressed more casually than he'd been the day before, wearing a hoodie with the swim team logo across the chest and a pair of fitted, hemmed jeans. He's also got a bulging camping backpack on, as well as what looks like about six plastic grocery bags in his wind-chapped hands.

Hoseok takes these as Hyunwoo removes his shoes, and the two of them step into the living room.

"This is it," Hoseok supplies helpfully, still a little shell-shocked by Hyunwoo's scent. It's very distracting, to say the least. "The bathroom is the door on the right of the hallway, closet on the left, bedroom at the end."

Hyunwoo nods politely, looking deceptively small, like he's trying not to take up too much space. It's disarmingly cute.

"You can leave your bag on the couch, I'll show you where everything is in the kitchen."

"Oh, thank you," Hyunwoo replies, ever courteous.

Once he's deposited his ridiculous backpack in the living room Hoseok gestures for him to follow him. 

They set the grocery sacks on the meager counter space, and start unloading them as Hoseok tries to explain where everything goes. Hyunwoo has brought what looks like every vegetable known to man, as well as an impressive assortment of fresh fruits and a few bottles of pressed juice. There's a loaf of whole grain bread, a box of granola bars and a truly massive jar of what looks like homemade kimchi beside the produce. Unable to help himself, Hoseok snickers.

"What?" Hyunwoo asks, a little wounded.

"Nothing, it's just, my friends already make fun of me for my fridge looking like the health food section of the grocery store, and you're not helping."

Hyunwoo's brows raise from their pensive little angles, and he shows Hoseok his teeth in a wide grin.

"I'll take that as a compliment."

Hoseok snickers again before starting to load the food into his cabinets.

It takes them a few minutes to put everything away, and for Hoseok to explain how to work the coffee machine and where all the cutlery is. He can't help but notice how, despite the two of them being practical strangers, they manage each other's space pretty well. Hyunwoo moves when he does, keeps his hands clasped in front of him but always has one ready whenever Hoseok goes to give him something. Not only this, but it seems that Hyunwoo had also neglected to take his repressors that morning, as the weight of his sharp scent almost seems to fill the entire apartment. Hoseok knows that some of his own scent must be leaking past the barrier of his own blockers by now, and wonders if it's affecting Hyunwoo like his is affecting him.

If it is, he's amazing at hiding it.

By the time Hoseok's finished giving him a tour he's let Hyunwoo into his bedroom to hang some of the clothes he had folded in his bag, as he watches from the doorway. It seems like Hyunwoo's brought mostly comfortable clothes, loungewear, sweatpants and hoodies and t-shirts to layer. He really wasn't kidding when he'd said he's done this before.

Hoseok leaves Hyunwoo to unload his toiletries next, going the get another glass of water to try and combat the warmth that's starting to make his cheeks perpetually pink-tinged. Hyunwoo joins him quickly enough, taking in the sight of him standing in the kitchen in his sweats and t-shirt, gulping from a beaded glass. Hoseok smacks his lips once he's drained it, and Hyunwoo blinks away.

"Starting already, huh?"

"Looks like it," Hoseok sighs. He'd hoped that he'd have the rest of the night to relax a bit before his heat really began, but it seems that he'd been too idealistic in that.

"So, um, how do you wanna do this, then? I figure we should talk about it before you get more, you know." Hyunwoo fumbles for words, not uncomfortable, but unfamiliar.

Hoseok agrees, and, after pouring himself another glass of water, leads Hyunwoo to sit a few feet apart on his couch. He pulls his feet up underneath him, cradling the cool water in his hands, while Hyunwoo hitches a leg up to face him better, and slings a casual arm over the top cushion.

"So you've done this before, you know what to expect, for the most part?"

Hyunwoo nods. "Lots of clinging, lots of sweating, lots of scenting. Headaches and stomach aches and skin sensitivity. More of an, um, emotional reaction to things?"

Hoseok giggles at Hyunwoo's attempt at diplomacy.

"You can say it, I'll be a huge crybaby." Hyunwoo laughs with him, itching his cheek shyly. "You're spot on about everything else, though. The worst of it should pass after the third day, hopefully, but before then it'll be pretty rough."

Hyunwoo winces in sympathy, which Hoseok appreciates.

"How about sleeping arrangements?" Hyunwoo asks after a moment, and Hoseok just sort of blinks at him.

"Oh, my god," he says, and Hyunwoo cocks his head. "I totally didn't even think about that."

Hyunwoo chuckles again, a touch of awkwardness to it this time.

Hoseok composes himself. "Well, at some point we'll have to sleep together, I'll need your scent to fall asleep at all after a few days, but, um before then it's up to you I guess?"

Hyunwoo's cheeks are suddenly matching Hoseok's, and he runs a hand through his unstyled hair.

"If it's alright with you, I feel like it'd be best for me to just sleep next to you starting tonight? To get the awkward bits out of the way?"

Hoseok sees the logic in this, though it doesn't erase the heavy tension sitting balled up in his throat. It's been easy to ignore before now, having Son Hyunwoo puttering about his apartment like any other guest would, that he's really here to become Hoseok's personal pain pill for a week. The most popular man on campus is sitting on his couch, discussing how quickly they should jump into the spooning aspect of their relationship, and it's really just hitting Hoseok now, that that's what this is.

"I'm fine with that," is all he says aloud.

Hyunwoo's head bobs in a nod, and Hoseok sips at his water, and it's awkward. It's very awkward.

But Hyunwoo doesn't let the silence last for too long, slapping his palms down on his thighs and standing up.

"Does kimchi jjigae still sound good for dinner?"

Standing as well, Hoseok nods. He shadows Hyunwoo into the kitchen, grabbing a pot, cutting board, and chopping knife for him while he collects the ingredients from the fridge.

He seats himself on the single stool he has in there, for whenever Kihyun comes over and wants to cook but is too prideful to ask for help with the upper shelves. He watches quietly as Hyunwoo gets to work. He dons a pair of plastic gloves before starting to chop up handfuls of kimchi, quickly moving onto onions and chives with a grace he's only ever seen before in Kihyun himself. He briefly wonders if all alphas are just good cooks by nature, but then remembers Minhyuk, and debunks his own theory. His wandering attention is stolen back by Hyunwoo speaking up softly.

"You want to nap while I finish this? It'll be another half hour, probably."

Hoseok wants to refuse, he's not being a very good host at the moment, but it's really hard to say no when he can barely keep his eyes open at this point.

"That might be best," he agrees.

He can't see it, but Hyunwoo grins down at his hands.

"I'll wake you up when it's done, go sleep."

Nodding heavily, Hoseok hops off the stool, leaves his half-full glass on the counter by the sink, and goes to collapse onto the couch, face first. He's asleep in moments.

From the doorway into the kitchen, Hyunwoo looks back at him, how he's just sprawled himself over the cushions like a child tuckered out from a day of playing. He wonders to himself how he's never really noticed this interesting omega before, with his shy smiles and his sculpted body, his giggles and his jokes, his sharp eyes and his maddeningly pink mouth.

Shaking his head to clear these confusing thoughts, Hyunwoo goes back to slicing pork shoulder and chives.

Hoseok ends up waking up on his own just as Hyunwoo starts plating the stew, sitting up and trying in vain to tame his bedhead. His nose carries his body into the kitchen, hands outstretched and reaching for the bowl a smirking Hyunwoo holds out to him.

"Careful, it's hot," he warns, but Hoseok just shoots him a look.

"This is nothing," he says, and sips directly from the lip of the bowl.

Hyunwoo jolts, but Hoseok only pulls off after a satisfying gulp of broth, making a short noise of surprise in his throat. His eyes are wide when he turns them to Hyunwoo.

"You weren't kidding about being good at this!"

Hyunwoo's smile turns softer.

"I got a lot of practice, my parents are hopeless in the kitchen."

Hoseok tsks at him, amused.

"Alphas. Always have to take care of everyone."

Hyunwoo just shrugs his big shoulders, conceding, and the two of them move to take their food into the living room. Hoseok puts a variety show rerun on the tv once they settle, and they eat companionably for a few minutes, watching idols show silly talents for laughs, until Hoseok finds something on the bottom of his bowl, and makes a happy noise of surprise.

"You pour the stew over rice?"

Hyunwoo nods, mouth full, eyebrow cocked at Hoseok's excitement.

"I'm the only one in my whole family that prefers it like this," Hoseok explains, happily shoving a steaming mouthful of broth-soaked rice into his mouth. "No wonder everybody loves you," he teases.

Hyunwoo's face instantly takes on the complexion of the jjigae.

"That's an exaggeration," he defends, but quiets down at Hoseok's sharp eye.

"Please. I once saw a freshman on the swim team ask you for your autograph.” Hoseok pauses, for effect. “He cried when you gave it to him."

"Okay, that was a single incident-"

"You have a fan page, Hyunwoo. Half of the school follows it. Accept your small-time celebrity status."

Hoseok revels in Hyunwoo's awkwardness now. He watches, delighted, as Hyunwoo just shovels stew into his mouth to keep from having to reply. Eventually he has to swallow, however, and Hoseok just looks at him expectantly.

"Well... are you following it?" Hyunwoo asks shyly. Hoseok's eyes widen for a moment, before he looks to the side, almost guiltily.

"No, actually. To be honest, I always thought it was kind of invasive." He's been on the page a few times, understandably curious about the school's golden alpha. But once he'd seen pictures of Hyunwoo's back from across the lunchroom and posts speculating about his timetable, he'd logged out and never gone back, a little queasy.

"Honestly?" Hyunwoo says, and he looks troubled all of a sudden, but not with their conversation, Hoseok thinks. More with himself. "I've always been sort of uncomfortable with it. I've never said anything because I don't want to seem ungrateful or, or like I think I'm above it, but. Sometimes, it's a little much."

Hoseok looks at him them, sitting across from him on his couch, and tries to remove any expectation he'd had before they'd met. Pull back the gilded curtain he'd looked at Hyunwoo through since he'd first seen him standing in front of him at the coffee shop. Now he's just a normal guy eating dinner, hoodie strings uneven, lips stained crimson with stew soup and pepper flakes. 

Hoseok can't imagine the kind of pressure that puts on someone, being held to that kind of standard despite never having asked for it.

"Have you considered reporting it? Or asking for it to be taken down?"

Hyunwoo flaps a hand his way, shaking his head.

"It doesn't bother me enough to make a big deal about it. If it ever does I will, though. I'm at least thankful that it's all positive," he jokes.

Now it's Hoseok's turn to drop his eyes into his stew, sipping at it with a mirthless little laugh. He's quiet, takes a breath to change the subject, but Hyunwoo beats him out and speaks first.

"Is something wrong?"

Hoseok keeps his eyes down, ready to deny it, until Hyunwoo's hot hand settles on his ankle, and he looks up into earnest black eyes set beneath curiously tilted brows. Hoseok heaves a sigh, and lowers his bowl into his lap.

"I just don't have the best reputation around here, I guess. As an omega."

Hyunwoo's confusion doesn't abate.

"What do you mean?"

Hoseok can feel his own face slowly filling in with color as he nibbles his lower lip. He almost wants to force the subject away, make Hyunwoo drop it, but he doesn't let himself. Hyunwoo's already shared something with him that Hoseok assumes he hasn't with many others, and it feels selfish to want to spare his own discomfort after that.

"Well I don't really look like most omegas, do I? Or act like them, for that matter."

Hoseok tries not to fidget as Hyunwoo's eyes scan him. His expression doesn't change from it's blatant confusion, though, only develops an almost... angry edge?

"What the hell does that matter?" Hyunwoo asks.

Hoseok's eyes widen slightly at the sharpness of his tone, at the sudden heaviness to his already strong scent. Sensing Hoseok's surprise, or maybe smelling it, Hyunwoo visibly works to calm himself down.

"Who cares what you look like?"

Hoseok nibbles his lip, and decides not to mince the truth.

"Alphas, mostly."

The strength of Hyunwoo's scent increases two times what it had a few seconds ago. He goes to set his bowl on the coffee table, and Hoseok has to tense his whole body to stop his flinch from becoming noticeable. The heat slowly overtaking him reacts to the pheromones just the same as his body, flaring sharply in his gut before settling into a low, nervous simmer.

"Did somebody do something, Hoseok? Is somebody telling you these things?"

Hoseok spares a moment to be surprised by the sincerity of the worry in Hyunwoo's voice before placating him.

"Not anymore, I promise. Don't worry about it, it's in the past." Hoseok puts his hand over Hyunwoo's still on his ankle, and flips it so they're palm to palm.

Hyunwoo's face is still a little tense, anger and disbelief wrestling on his features, but the grip he has on Hoseok's hand is gentle, and he takes a few deep breaths to settle himself.

"I'm sorry if I scared you," he sighs, and Hoseok is shaking his head before he's even finished speaking.

"I'm fine. Hormones are just making me jumpy, that's all."

Hyunwoo nods in understanding, and almost seems to set his shoulders before releasing Hoseok's hand, and heaving himself off of the couch. He grabs his bowl from the coffee table and even takes Hoseok's empty one from his hands before heading towards the kitchen.

"Hey, let me clean those!" Hoseok jumps up to follow him, but has to brace himself against the arm of the couch as a wave of vertigo crests over him. Luckily, Hyunwoo doesn't notice.

"Nope," he says, popping the p sound. "Go put your pajamas on and get ready for bed. I'll take care of it."

A moment of silence, where both of them are still.

"That sounded kind of demanding, didn't it?" Hyunwoo asks to the bowls in his hands.

Hoseok snorts, and Hyunwoo's shoulders climb up.

"Yeah. It did."

"Um, put on your pajamas, if you feel like it? So you'll be more comfortable?"

Hoseok can't help but giggle into his elbow as he walks down the hallway to his room.

"We'll work on your tone, alpha."

He doesn't see the way Hyunwoo's ears burn crimson at this, nor does he hear the creaking of the plastic dish brush as Hyunwoo almost snaps it in half in one big palm.

The dizzy spell abates quickly enough, and Hoseok slips into a pair of basketball shorts and an old taekwondo club t-shirt without incident. Hyunwoo knocks proprietarily on the door frame before entering, ears oddly pinkish. While he goes to rifle through his backpack, pulling out his own sleep wear, Hoseok trundles into the bathroom to brush his teeth. He doesn't look any different than he had that morning when he checks himself in the mirror, other than his eye bags becoming a bit more pronounced, and his cheeks looking just a touch more pink. He wonders how he'll look in the morning, on the dawn of the first full day of his heat.

His head swims again when he bends at the waist to spit into the sink basin, and a weary breath rattles its way out of his lungs.

Tomorrow is when this trial will really begin, and he can only hope that Hyunwoo is as prepared as he seems to be.


	2. Chapter 2

The night passes without incident for the both of them, neither of them awake enough to indulge any awkwardness.

Hoseok is so tired that he simply falls onto his side of the mattress, snuggles a pillow to his chest, and falls asleep.

Hyunwoo hasn't even laid down before Hoseok drops off, and so is left to crawl under the sheets as slowly as he can manage, determined not to jostle the sleeping omega only a few feet away. Once he’s in bed, however, staring up at the dark ceiling to keep from looking over at Hoseok's sleep-slack face, he can't well ignore the pull he feels towards him.

The scent of him had been distracting Hyunwoo since he'd arrived that evening; the fresh, tart fragrance swimming around him like citrus, ripe pomegranate, and plump, sugary summer pears. It had made the back of his neck hot as soon as the door had opened, made his palms sweat and his heart thud in his chest. He's never been affected like this before, not by any of the many omegas he’s always been surrounded by, and it’s almost… frightening.

Hyunwoo isn't scared of Hoseok, per se, and he certainly isn't scared of himself. He's spent his whole life trying his hardest to make every omega he meets feel comfortable and cared for. That isn't going to change.

Sleep claims him still wondering about what it could be.

Hoseok’s rest is uninterrupted the night through, and he wakes the next morning close to lunchtime. His head is fogged over as he drags himself from the tender embrace of unconsciousness, heavy on the pillow, and an ache is already present at the base of his skull, pulsing weakly with his heartbeats. As he fights to open his heavy eyelids, he's already aware that Hyunwoo is not in the room. A trace of his heady aroma is left on the bed next to him, but the warmth of his body no longer lingers.

Hoseok tries not to feel disappointed, and fails.

Untangling his arms from the pillow he'd been spooning, he sits up at a glacial pace.

He can feel his heat more prominently than yesterday, the pain in his head and the sensitivity of his skin obvious the more he clears the sleep from his system.

When he stands it's without difficulty, and, though he does wobble a bit on the first step, he makes it to the bathroom without relying too heavily on the hand he braces against the wall. The weight of alpha scent is much heavier here, and the floor is wet beneath Hoseok's bare feet, telling him Hyunwoo has already showered. If he listens carefully he can hear the metallic slide of pans on the stove from the kitchen, and his stomach rumbles in anticipation.

He hurries to relieve himself, brush his teeth, and run a wet hand through his misbehaving hair. For a moment he hesitates at the mirror, wanting to make sure he looks at least decent before showing his face. His hair is tame enough, but his eyes are a bit puffy, and his lips seem even more pronounced than usual.

He pouts at himself.

Unsatisfied, but hungry, he heads toward the source of the spiced rum smell wafting down the hallway.

"Good morning," he rumbles as he steps into the kitchen.

"Morning?" Hyunwoo asks. He's handsome in a classic, domestic way, all tousled hair and a broad back as he expertly flips an omelette. "It's past noon."

"And yet you're making breakfast." Hoseok quips back as he climbs onto the stool.

Hyunwoo chuckles, oceanic shoulders quaking.

"That's true."

Hoseok watches, chin in hand, as Hyunwoo plates the omelettes, sprinkles cheese over the top, and then sets one in front of him. His mouth instantly floods with saliva, and he hopes that he's not drooling as Hyunwoo hunches across from him on the small island.

"This looks amazing."

"Thanks." There's a shy curl in Hyunwoo's smile that Hoseok revels in. "I didn't know what you liked, so there's just onions and ham in yours."

"That's perfect," Hoseok assures, and digs in.

He can feel Hyunwoo watching him even though his attention is on his plate, but he doesn't mind it. It's in the alpha's nature to want to take care of others, to provide, so Hoseok knows that watching him eat food that Hyunwoo had prepared himself is doing a lot to quell any anxious hormones caused by being so close to an omega in heat. Kihyun is the exact same way whenever he comes over to cook for him, and even Minhyuk gets some satisfaction from being the one to answer the door for take-out orders.

It's another minute before Hyunwoo starts eating, and by then Hoseok is almost finished.

"Anything I should be preparing for today?" Hyunwoo asks, cheek distended with a bite he's yet to swallow.

Hoseok hums in thought.

"Today should be pretty mild." He pauses to get another forkful of egg into his mouth. "I'll need you close, though. I'm gonna try to sleep a lot, to be honest. I hope you brought things to amuse yourself with."

He tries not to sound sheepish. Hyunwoo waves a hand, not even pausing in his eating.

"I have homework to work on, and a bunch of movies downloaded on my laptop. Just tell me when and where you'll need me, and I'll be there."

Again, there's a pause, before Hoseok snorts, and Hyunwoo drops his face into his hands.

"Do you always talk like you're auditioning for a drama?"

Hyunwoo groans into his palms.

"Not on purpose? I’ve never thought about it before."

Hoseok keeps giggling at him until his hands drop, and his pink face is revealed. He sure blushes a lot for a guy with such a cool reputation, Hoseok thinks to himself, and smiles.

"Well I think it's cute, so don't worry too much," he comforts.

Hyunwoo doesn't meet his eyes as he starts eating again, mumbling something under his breath, something sounding suspiciously like 'now who's talking like a drama character'.

Hoseok just grins, and gets up to put his plate in the sink.

Hyunwoo actually lets him clean up after himself this time, which is nice, though it could very well just be because he's too distracted by his own food to notice Hoseok had even gotten up. Watching Hyunwoo eat is a little like watching a nature documentary of a bear going in on some poor little forest creature, though marginally less gory and with a lot more eyebrow.

Hoseok giggles to himself at the comparison. Busy washing his plate, he doesn't see the way Hyunwoo's lips quirk into a grin at the sound.

The two of them take turns changing in the bedroom, Hoseok ending up in a pair of track pants and a t-shirt, while Hyunwoo puts on another nice pair of jeans, and another club hoodie. This one is for the debate team. Hoseok wonders once he sees it how many organizations Hyunwoo is actually a part of.

By the time they're both a little more presentable it's mid-afternoon, and Hoseok's head is starting to pound. It must show on his face, as Hyunwoo's expression turns concerned whenever he looks over towards him.

"What can I do for you, Hoseok?" He eventually asks, standing beside the couch where Hoseok is slumped, eyebrows creased and lips terse.

Hoseok chews on his tongue, thinking. He's unused to having to communicate so much during his heats, and he's afraid to admit how much it's throwing him off. It's always been family, either in the form of his mother, or his closest friends, who have been here for him at his most vulnerable. Touching them, scenting them, sharing his tears and sweat with them, has never been something that's required any thought on his part.

Now, though, he finds himself lost in it.

Despite his comfort with him and how close they’ve gotten in such a relatively short amount of time, Hyunwoo is still a stranger in a sense. Not only a stranger, but a strange alpha at that. Hoseok's always been a bit too trusting, towards everyone. 

Unfortunately, it’s been proven to him time and time again that being that way, especially with alphas, will only get him burned.

His right to caution has been taken from him by his biology, however, and he has to take what he can get if he wants to make it through the week with his sanity intact.

"Just come sit for now," he says.

Hyunwoo doesn't waste any time, which Hoseok can still find within himself to be thankful for.

He settles himself close to Hoseok's prone figure, but not enough so that they're touching quite yet. His warmth, his scent, is already enough to have the pain easing into a mild discomfort. Hoseok goes limp, sinking further into the cushions. Hyunwoo tries a smile, one that only grows in confidence when Hoseok returns it, though his is a bit more dim.

"Better?" Hyunwoo asks gently.

Hoseok hums an affirmative.

"I'm gonna try and nap, feel free to put something on the tv. I'll sleep through it so don't worry about the volume."

Hoseok kicks his bare feet up onto his coffee table, working his hands into his pockets as he tucks his chin into his chest. Beside him Hyunwoo nods, reaching for the remote and hiking one leg up onto the couch, getting comfortable.

Taking one more deep inhale of the earthy pheromones perfuming the air, Hoseok lets go of his thoughts, and drifts off to the sounds of Hyunwoo pawing around for the tv remote.

A few hours later, after the sunlight has started waning through the blinds, Hoseok is shaken awake by a cool hand on his shoulder. The second he comes back to awareness, he regrets doing so.

During his nap his headache had apparently increased in potency, echoing in his ears with every heartbeat, driving pins behind his eyes. The noise that escapes him as he opens his eyes can only be described as a whine.

"Hoseok, are you okay? You were whimpering in your sleep."

Hoseok starts to shake his head, but stills with another bitten off noise.

"No," he grits out past clenched teeth.

Hyunwoo is already up and moving before Hoseok can even continue. He stands, moves away, and Hoseok almost lets out a plaintive noise as his sweet, hot scent disappears. If possible, his head only pounds more harshly. He goes to sit up a bit, biting his lip as the pain spikes in response, and cradles his head in his hands.

Hyunwoo's pheromones precede him, and Hoseok is already peeling his eyes open before he's even sat back down. In one of the alpha’s hands is a glass of water, in the other, a half-peeled tangerine.

"Drink this," Hyunwoo says, voice low, as he sets the fruit down on the coffee table. With his now free hand, he cups the curve of Hoseok's neck, his thumb cool and steady on the arc of Hoseok's jaw. When he raises the glass to Hoseok's lips and tips the icy water into his waiting mouth, Hoseok shivers.

When he's drained half the glass, Hyunwoo takes the water away, and trades it out for the tangerine. His eyes don't leave Hoseok's face as he works on finishing peeling it.

"Any better?"

Hoseok takes a breath, and thinks on his answer. His head still aches, but it's muted now, like the hammer in his skull has been wrapped in cotton. Hyunwoo's pheromones, excited by the ones Hoseok is undoubtedly shooting out into the air at the moment, are doing wonders to calm his pounding pulse.

"Yeah," he breathes.

Hyunwoo looks placated. He tosses the empty peel next to the glass, and begins pulling apart the little fruit with practiced motions.

"How's your stomach?"

"Fine, it's really just my head at the moment."

Hyunwoo nods, and then holds a tangerine spear up to Hoseok's lips.

Surprised, Hoseok can do nothing but accept the fruit into his mouth, and chew. His cheeks warm, and he curses his pale skin, not for the first time, for showing color so easily when Hyunwoo averts his eyes with a start.

"You need to keep your strength up," he explains.

Hoseok can't argue with that logic, so he quietly finishes his mouthful. The whole tangerine disappears this way, fed to Hoseok piece by piece from Hyunwoo's steady fingers. There's enough concern on Hyunwoo's face for the awkwardness Hoseok had felt to dissipate after a few more bites. Technically Hyunwoo is here to care for him, and that's all he's doing. Swallowing, Hoseok mentally chides himself. It'll make things a lot more difficult for the both of them if Hoseok starts acting like a young omega whose heart still flutters with an alpha's attention.

Once the last bit of the fruit is sitting happily in Hoseok's stomach, Hyunwoo gives his shoulder a quick pat.

"Thanks," Hoseok smiles, bashful.

Hyunwoo only grins at him, and rubs his own bicep sheepishly.

"There's plenty left, you want another one?"

Hoseok flaps a dismissive hand at him, his answer based more on not knowing how he'd handle another hand feeding episode than still feeling ill.

"Grab one for yourself, I think I'm gonna hop in the shower real fast. You still doing okay?"

Hyunwoo looks a little surprised at the question. Thankfully, he seems to actually think about his reply instead of brushing it off.

"I'm fine. I actually got some homework done while you were sleeping, so that's cool." He makes a little thumbs up motion, and Hoseok laughs behind his hand at his unintentionally dorky charm. "It's getting close to dinner time though, any preference?"

Hoseok thinks a moment, then shakes his head. His migraine has left him a little queasy, and he knows from past experience that it's not wise to test his stomach while in heat.

Hyunwoo nods, and stands, stretching his arms over his head to crack his back. Hoseok resolutely does not peek at the bronze flesh that escapes from beneath the hem of his shirt, though the hint he catches from the corner of his eye is enough to have him nibbling his lower lip.

He makes it into the bathroom without any major happenings, his headache dormant now thanks to the refreshing citrus and healthy dose of alpha pheromone he'd received just from sitting next to Hyunwoo. He can't help but think about how, in the past, he's only been able to get such a good read on an alpha's scent by actual scenting, and not just sitting near them. He'd have to practically smother Minhyuk in the throes of past heats to get the relief afforded by his fresh, minty aroma, and here he is now, feeling almost as good as new just from existing close to Hyunwoo.

Turning on the shower head and stepping under the cool spray, he lets the water carry those thoughts spiraling down into the drain beneath his feet. 

He takes his time washing, soaping his steadily warming body and luxuriating in the peacefulness of it. His shampoos his hair, being delicate with it so as to not induce another headache, and conditions it with the same gentleness. Feeling like pampering himself just a bit, he grabs his razor and methodically shaves his legs, relishing in the smoothness of his skin afterwards. He steps out of the bathroom feeling refreshed, and only slightly overheated.

He neglects drying his hair, but leaves his towel around his shoulders to catch any drops that fall as he pads down the hallway and into the kitchen.

Once again, he's greeted by the width of Hyunwoo's back facing him. The alpha is putting the final touches on a couple of sandwiches, it seems, and Hoseok's tummy actually manages a weak grumble at the sight that surprises both of them.

They laugh together as they retake their now habitual seats at the tiny kitchen island. Hyunwoo brings over the sandwiches and glasses of what smells like pomegranate juice, setting them down with an embarrassed flourish when Hoseok claps for him.

"Still feeling okay?"

Hoseok nods, unable to speak past the bite he'd already shoved into his mouth. Snorting, Hyunwoo lets him take a few more before starting on his own. They both eat quickly, and wash up just the same. Over the course of their quiet meal Hoseok's stomach stayed docile, but, unfortunately, his headache has begun creeping back up. By the time they've gotten the kitchen back to the sparkling clean it was before, he's sweating and clenching his teeth.

Unsurprisingly, Hyunwoo notices without being told anything.

"We need to get you in bed," he says finally, after he catches Hoseok's wince at the soft sound of a cabinet closing.

Hoseok can only nod.

Hyunwoo loops a gentle arm around Hoseok's back, fitting his hand beneath Hoseok's arm to help support him as they head in tandem down the hallway. 

Hyunwoo's sweet liquor scent swims around him, doing some to alleviate the pain in his head, but not as much as it had only a few hours earlier. Hoseok's frown deepens as he comes to terms with the fact that his heat is finally starting to settle in for real.

Once in the bedroom, Hyunwoo helps Hoseok to the mattress, supports him as he settles onto it, and steps back a foot, gesturing at the door.

"I'll wait in the hall while you change," he says, and takes another step back towards the door.

Hoseok, rubbing a palm over his forehead, holds out his free hand in a stop motion. Hyunwoo does so immediately.

"You really don't have to do that at this point, Hyunwoo. Just change in here."

Hyunwoo looks indecisive. Hoseok sighs, and heaves himself up. Hyunwoo moves to help him, but Hoseok has already gotten to his dresser, and begun taking out his sleeping clothes. It's a moment before Hyunwoo moves to grab his own. Hoseok works his hardest to concentrate only on himself, and ignore the sound of rustling fabric on the other side of the room. He quickly trades out his shirt, and slips his sweatpants down his legs to step into a pair of shorts instead.

Fully changed, he peeks over his shoulder to check on Hyunwoo's progress. Telling himself that he's thankful for it instead of disappointed, he finds Hyunwoo fully clothed as well, and facing the wall like a puppy that's been disciplined. That, at least, is enough to put a smile on Hoseok's drawn face.

"You can turn around now, Hyunwoo," he says, his grin audible in his voice.

Hyunwoo does so. He coughs briefly into his fist, and points a thumb to the bathroom.

They stand close as they brush their teeth. Hoseok can't help but to steal a few glances at Hyunwoo beside him, lips pursing as he scrubs his teeth, eyes squinting through the glasses he'd put on after removing his contacts. He leans over to spit toothpaste into the sink basin, breaking Hoseok's concentration, making him hurriedly clear his throat before doing the same thing.

The problem is that Hoseok has felt many things towards alphas, as a concept more than anything, in his life. A few of them even positive things. But never has he found one so genuinely cute as he finds Hyunwoo.

It throws him off kilter. Of course there are cute alphas, alphas that are sweet looking and small and big-eyed. Even Kihyun is cute when he's not being a grumpy little tyrant, with his apple cheeks and babyish laugh. But something about Hyunwoo and his blank face, his expressive eyebrows, his permanently pouty mouth, makes Hoseok's heart stutter in his chest.

Once finished with their nighttime routines, the two of them head back to the bedroom, flip the lights, and clamber into bed.

The previous night, Hoseok had dropped off instantly. Naively, he'd hoped that tonight would be no different. It's clear, though, after a few minutes of loaded silence, that that's not going to be the case.

He's so carefully aware of Hyunwoo's presence beside him, inches away, warm breath and hot scent so tantalizingly close his skin nearly crawls with the need to get closer, to be cocooned in those safe arms. If it were Kihyun, Hoseok would just scoot over, allow himself to be held. If it were Minhyuk, it wouldn't even be a problem, as they'd have fallen into bed already wrapped around each other. With Hyunwoo, though? Hoseok doesn't know what's allowed. He curses himself for being too awkward to have brought it up earlier, or let their conversation the previous day get more than skin deep.

Agitated by his bitter thoughts, his temples start to pulse with pain.

With it comes annoyance, directed inwards. He's over thinking this, like Hyungwon and Changkyun always scold him about. He's an omega, in heat, in pain, and there's a willing, strong alpha just inches away.

What is there to even think about?

"Hyunwoo?" Hoseok asks the darkened room, shifting onto his side. "Are you still awake?"

"Of course." The answer comes immediately. Red light from some billboard outside sneaks past the borders of Hoseok's curtains, and casts a harsh glow over the long planes of Hyunwoo's face, turned towards him. His eyes glow like flickering embers.

The air in the room suddenly feels heavy and humid, syrupy in Hoseok's tight throat.

"I think I need you," he says, hoarse.

There's a beat of quiet after he says it, not weighted enough to be silence, but still carrying something. Despite this, Hyunwoo’s reply is perfectly clear.

“Come here,” he says, and opens his arms.

Hoseok doesn’t have room in his body for embarrassment, so potent is the solace that settles over him as soon as he makes contact with Hyunwoo’s skin, cool against his own. He lines himself up against Hyunwoo’s side, head pillowed by his bicep, arm tight across the expanse of his chest. He does hesitate for a moment when it comes to the placement of his legs, but Hyunwoo welcomes him in, lifts a thigh to prompt Hoseok into slinging his own over his hips.

The relief is staggering. 

Being so close to the alpha’s throat, only inches away now, has Hoseok’s chest fluttering with the speed at which he’s taking his breaths, inhaling that musky wine aroma as deep as he can get it. Every gulp of air has his headache sputtering and weakening, like a flame starved of oxygen. Unconsciously, he tightens his hold on Hyunwoo. His muscle definition is stark in the intimate darkness.

“Is it helping?” Hyunwoo whispers. The hand Hoseok isn’t laying on comes up to smooth itself down Hoseok’s back, from his neck to the hem of his shirt.  
Hoseok hums, hooking his foot beneath Hyunwoo’s fleshy calf. 

“Good.” The alpha’s voice is barely audible.

His hand is still softly petting Hoseok’s back when he falls asleep, body totally lax and nose tucked snuggly into the dip of Hyunwoo’s shoulder.

At some point in the night, Hoseok is vaguely aware of being woken, and shifted about as Hyunwoo leaves the bed. Sleep addled, he whines for him, and is gently shushed. He curls up in the warm spot Hyunwoo left dejectedly, one half of him already asleep again and the other half desperately hanging onto wakefulness, wanting his alpha back, needing to be held. 

Hyunwoo must only be gone for a minute, but that minute feels like an hour. When he comes back into the room Hoseok grabs for him before he’s even made it onto the mattress. More quiet shushing, and then there’s a cool roughness, a damp rag, being swiped across his face.

“You’re starting to heat up, Hoseok,” Hyunwoo whispers, carefully wiping sweat from his hairline.

Of course I am, Hoseok thinks, I’m in heat, but he doesn’t say this aloud. He simply stays quiet, waiting for Hyunwoo to finish so he can fall back asleep.

Hyunwoo reaches for something he’d set on the bedside table then, and moves it in front of Hoseok’s face. A straw prods his lips. He opens them immediately, and sucks, letting cool water flood his mouth. He’s surprised by how good it feels, and realizes with a start that he must be getting really out of it to not have woken up on his own. 

Once he’s drunk enough, Hyunwoo pulls the straw from his mouth and sets the glass back on the table. 

Finally, blessedly, he climbs back onto the mattress. Hoseok is back on him immediately with both arms around his neck and a leg over his stomach, forcing a little chuckle past Hyunwoo’s lips at his eagerness. 

He’s higher up this time, closer to the source of that mind-numbing whiskey and grass smell that takes all of his pain away, and he can’t help himself, all decorum lost to the late hour.

“Hyunwoo, please, can I-“ he scoots further, face inches from Hyunwoo’s in the darkness. Up so close Hoseok can see how straight his eyelashes are, and how soft the surface of his lips seem to be. He’s almost distracted enough to forget his question, but only almost.

Hyunwoo catches on quickly enough, thankfully. He jolts a bit beneath Hoseok’s weight, and then hurries to tilt his head to the side, exposing a long line of tanned throat to Hoseok’s lidded gaze. 

“Go ahead,” he says. One of his hands lands on Hoseok’s thigh.

Hoseok doesn’t hesitate. He’s on Hyunwoo’s neck immediately, taking deep lungfuls of perfumed air, heavy with pheromone. He floats. His thoughts become dulled, sluggish, and his limbs go slack against Hyunwoo’s body. The tip of his nose grazes the skin behind Hyunwoo’s ear, and his bottom lip catches briefly on the taut flesh leading down to his shoulder, but he has no presence of mind left to apologize. He just keeps scenting, relaxing into Hyunwoo’s hold, until he drops back into unconsciousness. 

It takes Hyunwoo a while longer to calm his heart and his own heavy breathing before he can fall asleep as well, neck still bent to leave himself open as he drifts off.

The next morning finds the two of them finally free of the subtle discomfort that had been shadowing them since the first day. It’s hard to be awkward with someone once you’ve frantically scented them in the middle of the night, Hoseok reasons, and is glad for his own sleepy-self’s bravery in that aspect.

However, this is the only positive change, they find out soon enough.

The second day of Hoseok’s heat brings with it a steadily mounting fever, stomach cramps, and a general unease, like his skin is a size too small for his body. Omegas with male biology, being unable to get pregnant for obvious reasons, experience heats a little bit differently than omegas with female biology. Without the organs capable of child-bearing, they’re left with confused bodies, aching and irritated without any specific reason, flushed with lost hormones.

He spends most of the morning in bed after Hyunwoo gets up to shower, curled up and frowning down at his lap. He’s too hot to stay under the covers, and his bare toes wiggle around in agitation. With Hyunwoo and his placating scent gone, Hoseok is left to stew in his own thoughts while sweat beads up in a halo around his face.

Heats always make him feel extra introspective, extra sensitive, something Kihyun loves to tease him for whenever he’s there for it. Hoseok gets the idea, though, that Hyunwoo would never tease him, for anything. This, of course, makes him feel bad for assuming, and then he feels bad for thinking negatively of one of his best friends though he really hadn’t been, and then he’s just feeling bad in general. He’s pouting into a pillow by the time Hyunwoo comes back in from his shower, looking healthy and glowy and just making Hoseok feel worse.

“Is there a reason you’re glaring at me so hard?” He asks as he comes to perch on the edge of the mattress.

Now Hoseok feels bad for glaring.

“I’m not,” he says.

Hyunwoo is looking at him strangely, his lip corners curled up but his eyebrows still quirked in a question, and he looks really cute, cute enough that Hoseok’s face softens. 

“How are you feeling?” Hyunwoo checks Hoseok’s forehead with the back of his hand while he speaks. He doesn’t look happy with what he finds.

Hoseok, on the other hand, can’t help but to push into the touch, closing his eyes for a moment to enjoy the contact.

“Not too bad. A little nauseated, but I don’t think I’m gonna be sick or anything.”

Hyunwoo looks thoughtful, then stands.

“We should get some food in you before it gets worse, then.”

Hoseok groans, but starts to sit up as well. He sees the logic in that, and would appreciate it more if he weren’t feeling so contrarian at the moment. Even so, he knows when to just give in, and now is one of those times. He follows Hyunwoo into the kitchen, keeping a hand curled into the back of his sweater so he and his scent don’t get too far away. He contemplates hanging on while Hyunwoo prepares the food, but decides in the end to try and preserve some of his dignity, and goes to curl up in the loveseat instead.

He turns on the television for some white noise, and gets comfortable in his little ball as the sounds of domesticity filter in through the kitchen entrance.

When Hyunwoo comes back out it’s with two bowls of oatmeal, fresh berries and drizzled honey on top, and Hoseok’s mouth waters despite his rolling stomach.

“I could kiss you,” he blurts, and immediately swallows his tongue.

But Hyunwoo just laughs, if a little shyly, and sits as close to the arm of the couch as he can, so he’s not too far from Hoseok on the chair.

“I actually have a ‘kiss the cook’ apron, I should’ve brought it.”

Hoseok giggles at the mental image that conjures. The two of them eat their breakfast and watch tv, comfortable in each other’s presence. Scenting Hyunwoo last night had done wonders for Hoseok’s symptoms, obliterating his headache and getting rid of most of the sensitivity of his skin, and he finds that he can actually enjoy himself for once, this far into a heat. Normally he’d be a mess by now, just as sweaty but ten times more miserable. Hyunwoo really must be some kind of golden standard for alphas, or, at the very least, have some inhumanly good pheromones. 

Just as they’re finishing up, Hoseok’s phone, still left on the coffee table from the last time he’d used it, chirps with a notification. 

Hyunwoo is closer to it, and looks to Hoseok for permission to pick it up.

“Go ahead and read it, it’s probably just one of the guys checking in on me.”

Hyunwoo grabs the little device, thankfully not commenting on Hoseok’s bunny motif phone case, and swipes the text screen open. Instantly, his cheeks fill in red.

Oh god. What did those assholes send him.

“What is it?” He asks. He can feel himself blushing in advance.

“Um,” Hyunwoo starts. “Someone named Minhyuk said, um, ‘Is that hunky alpha treating you right?’, and ‘Do I need to call Kihyun to kick his ass for you?’”

Hyunwoo’s face could fry an egg with how hot his cheeks must be, glowing pink, and Hoseok can do nothing but laugh so hard he has to clutch his stomach.

Hyunwoo sets his phone on the arm of the loveseat while Hoseok collects himself, smiling despite his own shyness. Hoseok can’t help but love how Minhyuk can make anyone smile, even complete strangers.

“Don’t act like this is the first time you’ve ever been called hunky,” Hoseok teases. He relishes in Hyunwoo’s answering pout.

“I’ve never had to say it about myself in the third person before, though.”

Hoseok giggles again, and types out a quick reply, telling Minhyuk not to worry, and to tell the others he’s fine and he loves them. He settles back down after he’s sent it, ready to get lost in the mindless television show again, until Hyunwoo speaks up from beside him.

“Your friends really care about you a lot.”

Hoseok smiles at this, feeling warm.

“They just like to look out for me. Minhyuk especially, he’s a worrier.”

Hyunwoo nods, but looks like he wants to say more. Hoseok waits for him as he gathers the courage to ask what’s on his mind. 

“You mentioned yesterday, something about alphas?” 

Hyunwoo must notice how Hoseok tenses, as he hurries to continue. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, I just wanted to say you can talk to me about anything, if you ever felt like it. I’ve been told I’m a good listener.” 

Hoseok chews on his lip. 

Hyunwoo is looking at him so earnestly, all his attention on him, and Hoseok knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that he means it. He really would just sit in silence while Hoseok aired his grievances about his presentation with no judgement. How do people like Hyunwoo even exist?

Hoseok musters a smile for him, making sure it’s a genuine one. He watches the other man’s rigid posture loosen up at the sight of it.

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

Hyunwoo returns Hoseok’s grin, and they finish the rest of their meal in silence. 

Once the dishes have been washed and Hoseok has showered and emerged feeling markedly more human, the two of them resume their spots in the living room, quietly absorbed in their own tasks. Hoseok has just put on a movie, one he’s seen a dozen times already, and Hyunwoo is working on some kind of mathematics homework beside him. Hoseok catches himself watching Hyunwoo more than the movie, but can’t be bothered to stop. Hyunwoo taps away on his calculator, eyebrows that stern angle they always fall into when he’s concentrating, and he’s flipping his pencil amongst the fingers of his free hand as he works. He’d switched his contacts out for glasses at some point, and he has to frequently reach to push them up from where they slip down the slim bridge of his nose.

Hoseok’s stomach flips at the sight. 

At first he assumes it’s just because of the positively sexy image he’s being confronted with. He can’t be blamed for his reaction when Hyunwoo looks like the epitome of the handsome young academic, he thinks.

But then his stomach flips again, this time with an added lurch at the end, and his mind changes rather quickly. 

Hoseok wraps his arms around his torso as tightly as he can manage, and lifts his legs up so that he’s curled up into a ball on the loveseat. The back of his shirt is damp with sweat. He can feel it sprouting along his hairline as the cramps start to worsen, his whole body now held taught as he waits for the worst to pass.

“Hey, Hyunwoo?” He bites out.

Hyunwoo looks up blankly only to quickly drop his utensil at the sight of Hoseok’s face, no doubt twisted in a pained grimace. His own expression is drawn in sympathy as he stands only to crouch down in front of Hoseok’s seat, hands settling on his knees as he looks up at him. 

“Is it your stomach now?”

Hoseok doesn’t open his mouth, afraid he’ll whimper if he does, so he just nods.

Hyunwoo looks like he’s thinking for a moment, his jaw set, before he seems to get an idea.

“How does a nest sound?”

Hoseok jolts. Sweat tickles as it rolls down his spine. He’s not really one for nests, unlike every other omega on the planet. He’s never felt the drive, the compulsion. It’s something that makes him ‘other’, undesirable. It’s something he’s ashamed of. But it’s Hyunwoo’s suggestion, and if he were a normal, good omega, he’d definitely be all over it. 

“Sure,” is all he trusts himself to say.

Hyunwoo smiles at him, happy to have helped, and then scoops him up and off the loveseat.

Hoseok flails, kicking his feet in panic, and Hyunwoo only shushes him as he starts walking them towards the bedroom.

“Son Hyunwoo, put me down! I’m heavy!” Hoseok’s face has to be crimson by now, but despite his words, his grip is iron tight around Hyunwoo’s neck. Hyunwoo only snorts.

“You’re nothing I can’t handle,” he says, a little bit of a grin on his face. For once, Hoseok doesn’t feel like poking fun at his cheesiness. He quiets down, and tries to stay as still as he can.

Hyunwoo doesn’t make a sound even as he sets Hoseok down on the mattress. He deposits him gently towards the middle, and then sets off to grab the throw blankets and pillows Hoseok had left out for him in the living room. Hoseok collects himself in this brief moment he has to be alone. He fans his cheeks frantically, hoping to get rid of the stupid blush he knows is still there, and takes deep breaths to still his racing heart. 

Hyunwoo reenters with a ridiculous armful of throws and fleeces and pillows. He sets them in a heap at the foot of the bed, and for a moment, Hoseok just looks at them. He’s never been good at this part, the parts of being an omega that are supposed to be instinctual, written into his bones. He fiddles with his fingers, unconsciously chewing on his lip, trying to think past the writhing tension in his stomach and find anything in him, any kind of ingrained knowledge about what to do with this. 

It’s not coming to him. He just sees a pile of fabrics, doesn’t feel the compulsion to get up and start building something, and he hates this so much. He tries to hide his suddenly watery eyes behind his hands, but Hyunwoo isn’t having it.

“Oh, Hoseok, what’s wrong?” He grips Hoseok’s wrists so delicately for having such big hands, pulls them away and frowns at Hoseok’s clumpy eyelashes.

Hoseok just wants to cry to himself, in pain and frustrated and embarrassed and disappointed in himself even though his friends always tell him there’s nothing wrong with him, he’s perfect the way he is. But how can he be perfect if he’s not even good at being an omega? 

He starts crying in earnest now, hiccuping and coughing out little sobs that just serve to make him more agitated, more embarrassed to be losing it in front of this perfect person, who’s probably never felt out of touch with his presentation in his life.

“Are you hurting? Hoseok, tell me what to do, I need you to tell me what’s wrong.” Hyunwoo sounds plaintive, now, crawling up onto the mattress to cradle Hoseok’s face in his big, cool palms. Hoseok just shakes his head, keeps his eyes down, clutches at his own ankles so he won’t pull Hyunwoo closer like he so desperately wants too. Hyunwoo doesn’t leave him this option, however, and does it for him.

He pulls Hoseok to his chest, nestling his head into the crook of his neck and running both hands up and down his shivering back. Hoseok wants to freeze up, push him away, but the proximity to his throat, his scent, is too much. He can only breathe deeply and stutter around his cries, steadying as he starts to get himself under control. Hyunwoo’s scent invades every corner of his mind, numbing him, making him forget why he’d been so upset in the first place. It’s nice. Hyunwoo is nice.

He speaks up once he’s got his voice back. “I can’t do it.” He feels wrung out and dried up, but no longer on the verge of a meltdown.

“What can’t you do?” Hyunwoo asks gently, not pausing his soft petting.

“Nesting, I can’t-, I don’t know how.”

Hyunwoo pulls away. Hoseok’s stomach tightens up even more than he thought possible. Of course he wants to get away. Why would Hyunwoo want to touch an omega who can’t even do something as simple as make a nest?

But, if that were true, then why is Hyunwoo not scooting away, but only reaching to grab a blanket from behind him? Why is he settling it in an arc around Hoseok’s back, laying a little foundation of soft downy cloth?

“Then I’ll help you.” 

Hoseok has to gulp down a lump in his throat. He watches as Hyunwoo keeps laying down throws in a circle around them, making a soft little depression on the mattress, big enough for the two of them to fit snugly. Suddenly, Hoseok finds a pillow being pressed into his hands.

“Where do you want it, Hoseok?” Hyunwoo asks.

Hoseok clutches it to his chest, looking around them curiously, determined not to fuck this up. He decides on laying it to the left of Hyunwoo, pushing it into place in a little divot left by one of the blankets, and then looking to Hyunwoo, eyes wet and big, needing to know, to see if he did it right.

He’s met with a smile, so soft it’s like caramel dripping off a candied apple.

“Great choice,” Hyunwoo praises.

Hoseok can’t even hide how much he lights up when he hears it. He can feel his cheeks dimpling as he smiles, so relieved, hands going to grab fistfuls of Hyunwoo’s shirt just because. 

He did it. He is a real omega, he can make a nest just like any other. His heart is warm.

Hyunwoo shifts them then, handling Hoseok gently as he helps him curl up on his side in the center of their cozy nest. The one they made together. Hoseok feels a sense of serenity cover him like a warm blanket as Hyunwoo fits himself in behind him, tucks his knees up behind Hoseok’s and puts an arm around his waist, to settle his hand on Hoseok’s lower stomach.

“Is this alright?” He whispers into the back of Hoseok’s neck. 

“It’s perfect,” Hoseok whispers back, just as quiet.

They lay together in silence for awhile, how long, Hoseok can’t tell. He can’t see his clock from this position, and the curtains are pulled tight, not letting any light filter into the room from outside. The longer they stay here, curled up as one, the better Hoseok’s stomach feels, until it’s just an occasional twinge of discomfort that Hyunwoo quickly soothes with a press of his long fingers. The more his pain disappears, the more the fog in his head clears, and the more clearly he can think. 

His cheeks are still sticky with dried tears, but he no longer feels like he could cry at the slightest provocation. He’s not surprised he reacted so emotionally earlier, he knows better than anyone just how sensitive he gets during his heats, and while he no longer feels the humiliation that’d come over him then, he is a bit embarrassed. He can’t help but think of how well Hyunwoo had handled it, so calm, rational, but not condescending. Hoseok wonders what he did so right to have been paired with someone like Hyunwoo. 

The more he stews in thought, the more he contemplates the conversation they’d had over breakfast. Hyunwoo asking about his past, his feelings about alphas. His curiosity had been totally innocent, no malice to be found. He wasn’t asking just to have an opportunity to prove Hoseok wrong, he was asking because he wanted to know, wanted to be able to understand Hoseok’s feelings to the best of his ability.

Chewing his tongue, Hoseok thinks on it. 

Part of him wants to tell him. Wants to know his thoughts, wants to see if his compassion extends so far as this. But the other half, the half he’s sided with for so long, is scared. Scared of his reaction. Scared he’ll agree with everyone that had hurt him up until now.

Maybe, for once, Hoseok should be brave?

“Hyunwoo?” He says, quieter than a breath. He waits for Hyunwoo’s sleepy hum of acknowledgement. “Can I tell you something?”

Hoseok waits for the tension to enter Hyunwoo’s body, for the rigidity to lock up his limbs and ruin the calm atmosphere. But it doesn’t come. He only feels Hyunwoo move closer to him, long body cradling him with more strength than before. The hand on his stomach stays feather-light.

“I’m listening,” Hyunwoo rumbles against his neck.

Hoseok takes a deep breath, lets the pheromones flow in and through him on the inhale, around him on the exhale. The warm liquor smell loosens him up, and he feels like he can actually be heard now past the beating of his heart.

“I don’t… hate alphas, or anything,” he starts. Hyunwoo nods against the topmost knob of his spine, prompts him to continue. “Some of my best friends are alphas.”

“You don’t have to prove anything to me, Hoseok. I’m sure you have your reasons.”

If Hoseok weren’t so steeped in scent right now, he’d probably cry at that.

“I know you are, that’s why you’re so amazing.” He’ll still sniffle a bit, though. Hyunwoo holds him tighter. He takes a deep breath behind him, lungs rattling.

“Can I tell you something?” He asks.

Hoseok nods blankly.

“I kind of feel like, perhaps, your bar for amazing is a little bit low?” Hyunwoo nuzzles the tip of his nose into Hoseok’s nape, as if asking him not to get mad. “I’m just showing you basic compassion, Hoseok, this should be something you expect from the people close to you. Alphas included.”

Hoseok doesn’t know how to reply. He opens and closes his mouth a few times, gaping like a fish. 

Hyunwoo keeps up the soft drag of his nose across Hoseok’s neck, and the gentle caress of his hand over Hoseok’s belly. 

“You don’t have to say anything. Just think about it.”

But Hoseok doesn’t want to think about it. He doesn’t want to have to think about anything right now. He closes his eyes, and wills his mind into careful blankness.


	3. Chapter 3

Hoseok greets the dawn of the third day with flames burning him up from the inside out.

He’s dragged into wakefulness by sizzling, gut-wrenching fissures of pain spiraling out from his stomach, riptides tearing through him and shocking him out of a dream. Confused, hurting, still half-asleep and now at the peak of his heat, he can only whimper, and look desperately around him for his alpha. Only signatures of his scent remain, not enough to help him, not enough to extinguish the fire. 

Hoseok tries to sit up, needing to search and seek out and find his relief, panting like he’s been running all night. The first engagement of his abdominal muscles has him falling right back down however, back into the ball he’d woken up in. Sweat pours from him, his hair is wet and lank where it sticks to his face and his shirt clings to him like a second skin. As he lays prone on his side, bundled, sweat-soaked sheets in white-knuckled fists in front of his face, he racks his brain for a name.

His alpha is big and strong and sweet and he smells so, _so_ good and his name is… 

“Hyunwoo.” 

It’s a gravelly whisper, one that he can hardly hear past the bass drum beats of his pulse in his ears. Clearing his throat feels like gargling glass, but he tries as hard as he can so he can be heard.

“Hyunwoo!” 

That’s better. He still sounds like he’s speaking through wooden lips, but his voice is loud enough to echo back at him in the empty room. 

He writhes as he waits for a response. He feels as if he were to open his eyes, heat hazes like those above asphalt on summer days would distort his skin, make him nothing more than a mirage in a desert. The places where he’s touching himself; his inner thighs, the undersides of his arms against his ribs, his calves where they’re crossed, all feel like they’re molten sand, burning and slippery with sweat. 

A short, pitiful whine slips past his lips just in time for the bedroom door to open, and Hyunwoo to come barreling in. 

Opening his eyes feels like fire ants crawling on his optic nerves, the light cutting in through the blinds searing his retinas and making his head pound. But he doesn’t care. All Hoseok cares about right now is the alpha standing in his doorway, and wondering why in the hell he's not getting any closer.

“Hyunwoo,” he begs.

It seems like his plea is just pathetic enough to spur the alpha into action. He’s at Hoseok’s side in two strides, placing blessedly cold hands on Hoseok’s cheeks, holding them so tenderly. He moves so that he’s blocking the light from Hoseok’s face, who sighs in relief when the shadow passes over him.

“God, you’re on fire.” Hyunwoo sounds off, worried? Hoseok doesn’t like it.

“Don’t be mad.” Hoseok pleads weakly. He switches from holding fistfuls of bedding to wrapping his hands around Hyunwoo’s wrists. He watches through squinted eyes how Hyunwoo’s face contorts.

“I’m not mad, Hoseok, it’s not your fault.”

Relief trickles through him like a stream through sun-dappled woods. 

“Good.” Hoseok drops Hyunwoo’s wrists to reach for his shirt, tugging him with his meager strength. “Let me scent you.”

Hyunwoo, for some reason, resists his pulling. He releases Hoseok’s face to wrestle his fingers out of the material of his shirt, and holds them together in front of his chest.

“We need to get your temperature down first. Do you think you can walk on your own?”

Hoseok has to think on it. He tries to lift his heavy legs, but succeeds only in shifting them a few inches. He’s completely helpless right now. He looks up into Hyunwoo’s face, teeth tearing into his lower lip as he tries his hardest to keep the tears gripping his lashes from falling.

“I don’t think so,” he mumbles.

There’s a pressure on his chin then, and he tries to turn his head and get it off, but it follows. He recognizes it as Hyunwoo’s thumb, trying to get him to release his lip. He does so, even though it stings as blood rushes back into it, to see some of the tension leave Hyunwoo’s expression. 

“That’s okay, I can carry you.” He’s working his arms beneath Hoseok’s shoulders and behind his knees as he speaks. He's like a soothing balm wherever he makes contact, and even though his skin is as sensitive as it’s been all week, it’s eclipsed by the alpha’s touch. “We need to get you in the bath.”

Hoseok is too exhausted to reply. Even simply speaking is taxing for him right now, and he feels bad for being unable to help support his own weight when Hyunwoo grunts and heaves him up off of the mattress. His arms lay limply over his stomach as they start to make their way out of the bedroom, but he notices that Hyunwoo is careful to keep his head and his feet from hitting the doorway as they head into the bathroom. 

Hoseok does his best to help Hyunwoo get him situated on the rim of the tub, but his muscles feel like over-beaten egg whites and don’t want to cooperate with him.

“I’m a mess,” he grumbles. Hyunwoo snorts a little bit.

“Yeah, well, you have a pretty good excuse.”

Hoseok just pouts at him, eyebrows drawing down. 

Once he’s balanced on the edge of the bathtub, Hyunwoo kneels down beside him, keeping a hand on his back to help keep him steady, and reaches to turn on the tap. Hoseok flinches at the sudden noise of the pipes waking up, and the percussive explosion of a torrent of water leaving the faucet and hitting the bottom of the tub. His face scrunches up in obvious pain and, of course, Hyunwoo is quick to notice. He stands from his crouch, and cradles Hoseok’s head to his stomach. He uses his big, cool hands to block the ear left open, and Hoseok’s migraine abates, little by little. The water is sloshing against itself now, just soft, slippery sounds that don’t hurt him at all. He could pull away, but he doesn’t want too.

Hyunwoo’s scent sticks to him like molasses, and being so close to him, pressed right up to his belly, has Hoseok’s mind reeling. Every breath of air he takes calms a lick of flame, and brings an ounce of strength back.

After a few minutes, he’s feeling good enough to be able to lift his arms at Hyunwoo’s prompting, and wriggle a bit to help Hyunwoo slip his sodden t-shirt over his head. The air striking his damp skin sends a shiver through him, though he barely feels a difference on the surface. He’s still burning up.

“Shorts on or off?”

Hoseok still has enough presence of mind to flush at the question, though there’s no visible change in his already incarnadine cheeks.

“On,” he mutters. 

Hyunwoo is still standing in front of him, so close he has to crane his neck to be able to look up into his face. He’s petting Hoseok’s hair mindlessly, attention divided between making sure Hoseok doesn’t fall over and the water that’s still slowly filling up the tub. There’s no steam to carry the brunt of Hyunwoo’s scent, but the room is small and tiled all around, and the fan is off. Hoseok feels floaty and insubstantial as he breathes in great lungfuls of pheromone, billowy like a nightgown drying on a clothesline. His head feels stuffed with cobwebs, and, while his stomach has yet to cease its twisting and turning and squeezing, it’s at least settled to an almost dormant writhing. He nuzzles his cheek into Hyunwoo’s cupped palm on an impulse.

Hyunwoo looks down at him, finally, dark eyes catching his with a fond tilt to the creases framing them.

“Good morning,” he teases.

Hoseok can manage a huff of laughter.

The tub fills up with lukewarm water eventually, and Hyunwoo helps Hoseok lower himself from the edge to be submerged. The first touch of the water to his skin is glacial, and he jerks so hard he would’ve fallen had Hyunwoo not had his arms tight around his waist. He’s gently shushed. That quiet noise shouldn’t have such an intense affect as it does, Hoseok thinks. He lets himself be sat down towards the far end of the bathtub, and leans back against the sloped wall with a sigh. The water comes up to his neck now, and the gradual exposure has lessened the sting of the temperature. 

The sigh he sends out carries all of the pain and confusion of the morning so far, and Hyunwoo echoes it. For a moment after that, it’s silent. Hyunwoo had dipped his hand beneath the water to entwine his fingers with Hoseok’s, and the contact, though small, is as soothing as a lullaby.

The spell gets broken by Hyunwoo’s voice, rousing Hoseok from his stupor.

“I’m sorry for not being there when you woke up,” he whispers.

Hoseok shakes his head slowly back and forth, not picking it up or even opening his eyes from where they’d fallen shut. The statement is ridiculous, he refuses to give it his full attention. “Don’t be.” 

Hyunwoo’s thumb swipes across the back of his hand. It feels like the only tether Hoseok has to earth in this moment, the only thing keeping him from drifting away.

“It’s my job to keep you safe and healthy-“

“And that’s what you’re doing right now.” Hoseok finally opens his eyes and turns his head. Hyunwoo looks crestfallen, chin propped on the lip of the tub, eyes trained dowards, away from Hoseok’s. Even as out of it as he is, Hoseok still wants to coo at how cute he looks. “Look at me.”

Hyunwoo’s eyes come up instantly. Hoseok squeezes his hand with the embarrassing amount of strength he has left. 

“You’re an amazing alpha, and you’ve been helping me so much. There’s no one I’d rather be with right now.”

Hoseok surprises himself by meaning it, wholeheartedly. Trying to imagine anyone else by his side in this moment only worsens his headache, and puts an odd heaviness on his heart. He shifts a bit, face tensing as the water slops quietly around him. Hyunwoo’s expression had been so open, lashes fluttering, but it turns serious once again at Hoseok’s unintentional noise of discomfort. 

He puts his hand on Hoseok’s forehead, and breathes a sigh of relief.

“Your temperature’s going down at least.”

Hoseok hums. He nudges Hyunwoo’s hand with his face until he laughs and starts running it through his hair. Hoseok slips back into that incorporeal place, where it’s just him and his alpha, existing abstractly. The cool water cradles him. The repetitive motion of Hyunwoo’s fingers skirting past his scalp carry him into half-wakefulness, such that the only awareness he has of his body are the places where Hyunwoo is touching him.

Hyunwoo lets him soak for a few more minutes before helping him up and out of the water.

With his temperature down and his system fully flushed with alpha scent, Hoseok has regained enough strength to stand on his own while Hyunwoo pats him down with a fresh towel. His touch is as gentle as always, and the awkwardness of unfamiliarity has completely fled them, leaving Hoseok to take direction on when to move which dripping limb without cheeks too flushed. He seems to deem Hoseok’s sopping wet boxers a lost cause, and simply tucks the towel around Hoseok’s waist before taking his hand and leading him into the bedroom.

He grabs a pair of track pants for Hoseok to change into, but lets him grab his own underwear, which is a small blessing. Hoseok changes at a sloth’s pace, but eventually stands, bottomed and damp-headed, for appraisal.

Hyunwoo’s eyes linger on his chest, his shoulders. Hoseok knows his flush is still pretty strong, he’ll be red and blotchy for hours to come.

“Kihyunnie says that I turn into a peppermint when I’m in heat,” Hoseok shares conspiratorially. “- and Minhyuk just says I look like the finger paintings his nephew makes.” He snorts into his fist, while Hyunwoo just keeps looking at him.

“Finger paintings are still art,” he says.

Well.

It’s the later half of the morning when the two of them make it to the living room, not quite noon yet. Hoseok rejects Hyunwoo’s offer to make a late breakfast despite his stern face, and Hyunwoo lets it go once he gets a promise that Hoseok will at least drink some orange juice. While he goes to prepare a glass, Hoseok gets comfy on the couch.

He flicks on the tiny portable fan on the coffee table, and wriggles happily into the cushion when blessedly cool air starts to buffet his bare skin. Hyunwoo chuckles at his blissed out expression when he comes back in from the kitchen, holding a glass in each hand. 

He holds the cup again like he had yesterday, which Hoseok makes himself not dwell on as he sips cool juice with Hyunwoo’s big, broad-palmed hand framing his jaw. His stomach gurgles unhappily when he swallows, so he only takes a few sips before turning his head away. 

The two of them settle into the couch and flip around in the channel guide. Hyunwoo hesitates on the history channel, which makes something in Hoseok’s heart twist like a wine bottle being uncorked.

“That one looks interesting,” he points at it, though it most certainly doesn’t. 

Hyunwoo’s face when he turns to him is so worth the boredom, however, as it lights up with the sweetest, most childlike excitement Hoseok has ever seen from an alpha. Even so, his eyes glaze over as soon as the documentary starts. He’s still feeling too uncomfortable to be able to fall back asleep, a little too restless and heavy-feeling. He sinks into the couch and tries to let his mind wander, but no matter what the only thing on his mind is mulled wine and sweet rum.

Hyunwoo’s scent, unfettered by any repressants, perfumes the living room with increasing intensity the longer they sit. An hour into the movie and Hoseok is practically drunk off of it. Deep, even breaths keep it pumping through his lungs, tingling in his nostrils and warming the back of his throat. His belly no longer cramps, and his head doesn’t pound. He feels gossamery and gauzelike. The only thing wrong with the situation, in his mind, is that he and his alpha aren’t even touching. Not at all. Luckily, that can be remedied.

Hyunwoo, distracted by the television, doesn’t notice Hoseok is moving until it’s too late to escape.

Hoseok rolls over with all the grace of a land bound octopus, scooting and inching until he’s resting heavily but happily in Hyunwoo’s sturdy lap. Breathing labored from the exertion, he makes unflinching eye contact with a pair of shocked ones only a few centimeters away. Distractingly, their noses brush.

“Is this okay?” 

Hyunwoo looks at him and, despite his flaming cheeks, his face settles into a calm expression.

“Of course,” he says, just as quietly as Hoseok had.

Hoseok smiles so hard his cheeks crease in rare dimples, and Hyunwoo’s own redden further. 

It’s without reservation that Hoseok buries his face into Hyunwoo’s neck, snuffling happily. His body tingles all the way from his scalp to his toes, and he imagines if he had a tail, it’d be puffed up and ramrod straight. He settles in, getting comfortable on Hyunwoo’s lap, wrapping his arms around his neck and leaning his temple against the blade of his strong shoulder.

“Can you still see the tv?”

“What?” Hyunwoo says. “Oh, uh, yes, I can.”

“Good. I’m just gonna-,” Hoseok interrupts himself with a hearty inhale. Hyunwoo snorts at him, but even that can’t pull him from his prize at the moment. He clings harder, squeezing Hyunwoo’s hips with his thighs and pressing himself into Hyunwoo, from chest to navel. The full body contact has him tiptoeing amongst the stars, so at ease and relaxed that he doesn’t spare a thought before dropping a peck onto the arch of Hyunwoo’s jaw. 

“Thank you, alpha,” he purrs.

Hyunwoo’s hands rub at his bare sides soothingly. How long has he been doing that?

“Don’t thank me.” His voice is oddly shaky. “I’m just doing my job.”

Hoseok gulps down a strange lump in his throat upon hearing that. Of course he is. Why else would he be here? He’s Son fucking Hyunwoo, as if he’d ever willingly hang around the likes of Lee Hoseok, outcast omega. They were paired up by bored volunteers at the OW department. Beyond that, they were nothing. Are nothing.

Shaken up, Hoseok clings tighter. Hyunwoo grunts at the near headlock Hoseok has him in, but only pulls him closer in response. His arms circle Hoseok’s waist, settle on his lower back chastely. He hums, and the tip of his strong nose just barely brushes the naked expanse of his shoulder.

“Your scent changed. What’s wrong?”

Hoseok shakes his head, pushes deeper into Hyunwoo’s neck. He doesn’t want to tell.

“Hoseok,” Hyunwoo says. There’s a measure of warning to his tone, and it makes a whine stick like taffy to Hoseok’s lips. “I won’t make you tell me. I just want you to know that you can trust me with whatever’s bothering you.”

Hoseok knows that, and he does trust Hyunwoo. So, so much, and it scares him. Scares him because he’s never warmed up to an alpha so quickly, not since it was first proven to him why that was a bad idea. But Hyunwoo just keeps working his way in, leaping past Hoseok’s boundaries and limits with his eye smile and his sincerity and his earnestness. It’s scary, but mostly because of how much Hoseok hopes to be wrong. He wants to be able to trust and not be burned for it, just this once.

“I want to be able to trust you,” he bites out. His eyes drip wetness onto Hyunwoo’s shirt.

“You can.”

Hoseok grinds his face into Hyunwoo’s shoulder, taking heaving breaths of expensive whiskey.

“But you’ll leave after this.” His voice is a whine, squeezed through a tight throat. “You’ll leave and it won’t matter that I trusted you, because you’ll be gone.” Hyunwoo’s arms tighten further around him, pressing him against his chest with strength that would hurt a slighter person than Hoseok.

“I don’t have to,” Hyunwoo says. He pulls back to hold Hoseok’s cheeks in his palms, makes him face him. His expression pinches as he takes in Hoseok’s glittering eyes, red-rimmed and puffy. “I don’t want to, either. The only way I’m leaving for good after all of this is if you ask me to yourself.”

“I wouldn’t,” Hoseok says quickly. A smile hints at Hyunwoo’s cheeks, his laugh lines deepening the barest amount. He looks fond, and he’s looking at Hoseok, but those two things don’t make sense together.

“Then you have nothing to worry about.”

He tilts Hoseok’s face down, and leans in to press a peck to Hoseok’s forehead. He’s sweaty and probably gross, but Hyunwoo isn’t grimacing when he pulls back, doesn’t wipe his mouth in disgust. 

Still pondering that, Hoseok finds himself tucked back into Hyunwoo’s shoulder, Hyunwoo’s arms once again surrounding him with a cool embrace. He can’t help but go limp, held carefully, inundated with scent now stronger because of Hyunwoo’s emotions, whatever they may be. He slips readily into that foggy, finespun place, where things are simpler and don’t make his chest feel compressed and soggy.

Hoseok’s head empties like water through a sieve. He’s distantly aware of the movie still on the tv, of the rise and fall of Hyunwoo’s chest beneath him, but these things filter in one ear and right out the other.

The rest of the day passes much like this. Hoseok is out of it, body weak and mind tired by the climax of his heat. His temperature keeps trying to crest as it had in the morning, but Hyunwoo works tirelessly to keep it from reaching that point again. He flushes Hoseok’s body with as much juice and ice water as he can stomach, always holding the glass for him and tilting his head back with featherlight touches. Cold packs take up permanent residence on his wrists, forehead and neck, cooling his boiling blood down to a bubbly simmer. Hyunwoo himself puts on sweatpants and a hoodie over his t-shirt, ignoring Hoseok’s slurred assurances that he can turn the heater on if he gets cold.

Hoseok’s cramps come back after a while, this time strong enough to still be felt even with his face buried fully in Hyunwoo’s throat. He refuses to eat because of them and, though it obviously pains him, Hyunwoo doesn’t force it.

Hoseok is practically nonverbal after this point. He clings to Hyunwoo like a sickly koala, fingers locked in his clothing like little flushed vices. He’s in the alpha’s lap as he watches television, spooning him from behind when he hunches over to do homework, even stands beside him, forehead leant onto his shoulder and knees wobbly, as he makes himself a quick egg and rice dinner. His stomach is whirling and tumbling, making him think of sneakers in a washing machine, and his joints ache like an old man’s, but the only thing on his mind is Hyunwoo, alpha, and Hyunwoo again. 

When it comes to bed time, the both of them are worn clean out. Hoseok doesn’t even feel guilty about Hyunwoo carrying him down the hallway this time as he’s simply too tired and too scent drunk to care. He manages to brush his teeth (though Hyunwoo has to squeeze the toothpaste out for him) and change into a fresh pair of shorts (steadying himself on Hyunwoo’s forearm) without too much trouble, but once he hits the mattress he’s basically just a sweaty, aching starfish waiting for a rock to plaster itself to. 

Hyunwoo hurries to climb in after him, and, after a minute of hesitation that Hoseok honestly snoozes through, he slips out of his hoodie and shirt and tosses them across the room. Hoseok is really only aware of this once Hyunwoo helps drag him over onto his side of the bed, and his fingertips meet golden flesh. Hoseok settles into him like a ship out of dry lock, bare chest to bare chest, summery tan against wintery fairness. His hands curl up into limp fists on Hyunwoo’s breastbone, nestled into the dip between his pectorals. Hoseok breathes his scent in through an open mouth, reminded again of a ship, now rocking dreamily over shy waves. Through all of this, Hyunwoo lays in content silence, waiting for him to get comfortable before speaking in a whisper.

“Is it alright if I touch you?”

“Why aren’t you already?” Hoseok slurs in answer.

Hyunwoo’s chest trembles with caged laughter, and his arms come up to circle Hoseok’s waist, at once both heavy and weightless.

Hoseok still feels his heat, is still gnawed at by soreness and sweat and vulnerability, but for now, he also feels safe. And he falls asleep feeling this way, cradled in the cool embrace of Hyunwoo’s body.

The fever breaks overnight.

Amidst hours of fidgeting, kicking, and clenched fists, Hoseok comes out on the other side unscathed, having breached the heat’s crest no worse for wear.

He’s so relieved once he wakes up and notices that he doesn’t have room left in his heart to be embarrassed about his and Hyunwoo’s… sudden closeness.

In the night, probably to prevent Hoseok from hurting either of them with his flailing and squirming, Hyunwoo had apparently seen it fit to totally entomb Hoseok with all of his meaty, sun-kissed limbs. Hoseok is in the fetal position facing Hyunwoo, sleep-squinted eyes meeting a rather exceptional chest upon first creaking open. Hyunwoo’s arm is heavy over his shoulder, as is his right leg, hitched up and hooked over Hoseok’s waist. 

Utterly surrounded and unable to move, Hoseok is surprised at himself for how at peace he feels. Nothing can touch him in this moment, held carefully and tenderly in the embrace of someone so gentle even in sleep.

This bone-deep feeling of correctness, of belonging, stays with Hoseok even as he falls back asleep himself, unconsciously nuzzling closer into Hyunwoo’s hold.

Hyunwoo wakes first next, subsequently waking Hoseok when he tries to worm his way out of the bed. Hoseok whines unashamedly, stretching his arms to crush Hyunwoo to his chest, preventing him from leaving. He must underestimate the amount of his strength that’s returned, as Hyunwoo grunts at the force he uses.

“I’m not trying to leave you,” Hyunwoo placates. He stops moving, and Hoseok stops compressing his ribcage like a python. “I just thought you’d be hungry since you didn’t eat yesterday. I wanted to have breakfast ready before you woke up.” 

Hoseok whines the loudest yet, and buries his face into Hyunwoo’s, well. Cleavage is what it is.

“Can you stop being perfect, even for one second?” He moans. He feels more than sees Hyunwoo’s shoulders climb towards his ears. Hyunwoo doesn’t comment with anything other than a husky cough.

“Well maybe if you stopped being so cute, I wouldn’t want to do things for you.”

Oh. So it’s a battle then. 

Hoseok reluctantly extracts his face from Hyunwoo’s chest to look up at him, meeting pink cheeks above a half-smirk. 

“Well maybe if you stopped being such a good alpha, I wouldn’t want you to do things for me.” He jabs his nose into Hyunwoo’s pec to make his point, startling a very giggle-like laugh out of him.

“Then maybe you should stop being such an enchanting omega, then I would be able to say no to you.”

Now it’s Hoseok who’s pink. He laughs incredulously despite it, wriggling until he’s free enough to look Hyunwoo in the eye without craning his neck.

“Enchanting, huh? That’s a strong word.”

Hyunwoo’s face hasn’t lost its blush, but has become a bit more smug. Hoseok wants to smush his cheeks until they lose their cocky tilt.

“Still applicable, I stand by it,” Hyunwoo says. 

Hoseok suddenly feels a lot less playful. His bashfulness can’t be won against, not when Son Hyunwoo is staring him down, an arm still curled around his waist. 

“You’re so full of shit,” Hoseok stammers out, laughs off. 

Despite being cursed at, Hyunwoo’s smile only broadens, and softens at the edges. 

“If you say so.” 

Hoseok can feel Hyunwoo’s eyes trying to catch his own, but he refuses to fall into that stupidly handsome trap and instead squirms out of Hyunwoo’s hold entirely. He scoots until he’s at the edge of the mattress, and stands carefully. Hyunwoo moves to help, but Hoseok waves a hand at him.

“I feel fine, go ahead and start on breakfast. I wanna wash all this sweat off me.” Hoseok runs a hand over his torso, grimacing at the tackiness of his skin. Hyunwoo makes a choked noise across from him, but when Hoseok looks up the alpha is gazing stalwartly down at the sheets.

Leaving him to his strangeness, Hoseok snags a towel off of the drying rack in the corner and heads into the bathroom. He takes his time cleaning himself, lathering up with soap twice before he feels satisfied that every trace of heat sweat is off of him. He keeps the water barely warm, but still the little shower cubicle floods with vapors that enwreathe him in his own scent.

He wonders to himself if Hyunwoo likes citrus.

He makes sure to brush his teeth thoroughly, even flossing and gargling a capful of mouthwash to get the chalky, sawdusty flavor of sleep and hunger out of his mouth. He changes into comfortable clothes quickly after drying off, once again leaving his hair to drip onto his shoulders in his haste to get some food in him.

Like always, in this aspect Hyunwoo delivers.

Hoseok enters the kitchen to all the smells and sounds of a full western style breakfast in the making. Salty bacon fries in its own fat on the burner next to six sunny side up eggs popping and sizzling jauntily. He notices his four chamber toaster is full, and the oven light is on. The whole apartment smells divine, homey and savory. Hoseok imagines Kihyun, still at home with his family, waking up in a cold sweat, feeling his title as Hoseok’s favorite cook being inexplicably threatened.

Hyunwoo, humble and large, has a hip cocked against the counter as he turns the bacon over one by one. He’s still shirtless.

“You can’t be real,” Hoseok mumbles.

Hyunwoo had to have known he was there, as he doesn’t jump. Still, the back of his neck fills in red, and Hoseok feels blessed to be able to see the way it trails down onto the upper part of his back in a coquettish point.

“Ha ha,” Hyunwoo replies flatly. “How are you feeling?”

“Hmm,” Hoseok hums, thinking, as he hops up onto his island stool. “Way better. All I’m feeling now is hungry, and also like I could go for a really good therapeutic cry.”

Hyunwoo snorts so hard he drops his tongs.

“I can take care of the hungry part, don’t know how to help with the crying though.”

“I can put on a movie later. You don’t have to watch if you don’t want.” Other than Minhyuk, Hoseok’s never met an alpha that was willing to sit through his sappier dramas. Not even his own mother.

“I’ll stay close, but I can’t guarantee any tears. I don’t cry easily.”

Part of Hoseok desperately wants to take that as a challenge, but before he can formulate a plan the oven buzzer goes off, and Hyunwoo asks him to pour some juice for the both of them.

Once they’re both seated before steaming plates piled high, Hoseok is barely able to keep himself from drooling. Bacon, eggs, buttered toast, and warm biscuits fresh from the oven, covered in strawberry jam for him and lemon curd for Hyunwoo. He forgot he even had lemon curd.

Hoseok eats like a man starved, prompting Hyunwoo to warn him about choking several times. There’s just enough food to fill him up, but not enough for him to give himself a stomach ache from having too much. He pushes it though, going so far as to lick a finger and sweep it over his clean plate, picking up every last crumb and leaving nothing to waste. For once, it’s Hyunwoo watching Hoseok eat with fearful awe. The alpha is much more composed while he polishes off his meal, though his plate is just as spotless as Hoseok’s by the time he finishes.

“You’re hired,” Hoseok moans, both hands cradling his happy belly.

Hyunwoo honest to god giggles, shoulders laughing with him, but he looks as pleased as anything.

Hoseok doesn’t even leave him time to think about getting up and cleaning, hurrying to collect as many dirtied dishes and utensils as he can. Hyunwoo had done a lot of the washing up as he went, it seems, but there’s enough left for Hoseok to feel better about his contributions.

Hyunwoo goes to shower while he’s occupied at the sink. His scent lingers, but fades just enough that Hoseok’s mood drops just a bit. By the time he’s finished and gotten dressed, Hoseok is slumped on the couch, remote pointed at the title screen of one of his sappiest and most tear-jerking movies.

“You don’t have to watch, but I would prefer it if you could stay close? I feel pretty good, but I’d rather not push it.”

Hyunwoo falls readily onto the sofa a cushion over.

“I won’t go anywhere.” He grabs his laptop as he speaks. “I have some assignments left to finish.”

Leaving the alpha to his schoolwork, Hoseok starts his film.

It’s comfortable, this feeling. The two of them together and alone, content in each other’s space. With the worst of his heat having passed Hoseok is no longer sent to the sky with Hyunwoo’s pheromones being so close, but he’s still an omega, and he feels warm and safe all the same. Against his will, Hoseok’s traitorous mind wanders to what it’d be like if Hyunwoo weren’t here on obligation. If he were here because he wanted to be, because this is where Hoseok is and he wants to be around him.

Hoseok’s eyes get hot, and it’s only in part thanks to the film. 

His imagination can only take him so far before it’s derailed by reality. These fantasies are more bitter than sweet. At the end of the day, Hyunwoo is the most famous alpha on campus, and Hoseok is Hoseok. Dysfunctional omega whose name nobody cares to remember past the night. 

On screen, the omega lead collapses into a pretty pile of tears. Hoseok mirrors a sniffle.

Out of the corner of his eye he catches movement, and jolts when he notices Hyunwoo’s hand, outstretched and clutching the box of tissues from the coffee table. His expression is tender, with a hint of a tease in the corners of his mouth.

Hoseok silently takes the tissues, and wipes at his eyes. Once he’s suitably dried off, he peeks to see Hyunwoo already turned back to his work.

“How’s this, uh, therapeutic cry going for you? Feel better?”

Hoseok catches his ruinous snort behind the wad of damp tissue.

“Totally.”

Hoseok’s thoughts keep him quiet and occupied all the way through the day. He feels listless and not quite numb, not quite apathetic, but certainly out of sorts. Hyunwoo lets him sulk with poise. He gives him space, but is never too far. His scent is always available, his touch always freely given but not forced upon him. At one point, after they’d eaten lunch and are back on the couch, Hoseok finds himself playing with Hyunwoo’s hand, with no distinct memory of when he’d grabbed for it. He risks a glance up, only to see Hyunwoo dozing with his head leant against the sofa back, snuffling and licking his lips in his sleep. It brings one of the only genuine smiles of the day to Hoseok’s face. 

Like always, however, these things are harder to ignore in the darkness.

When it comes time for the two of them to crawl into bed, Hoseok feels tense, for the first time since this all began. 

He hesitates before moving to Hyunwoo’s side, lies still in the hellish red glow coming from that same billboard outside, and Hyunwoo heaves a quiet breath from where he’s laid back. 

“Hoseok,” His words cleave the dark. “I think we need to talk.”

That’s the last thing Hoseok wants to do, but probably the thing that needs to be done the most. He scoots closer with stiff limbs, close enough to touch. He doesn’t.

“What do you want to talk about?” He asks. His voice is as quiet as the traffic sounds from outside. 

“Whatever’s bothering you.” Hyunwoo props himself up a bit, and the redness bleeds over his bare chest, gilding him. “I know I’ve been saying I won’t make you talk about anything you don’t want to, but at this point I’m worried. You’ve been off all day.”

“Sorry.”

“No, don’t-“ Hyunwoo sits up fully. “That’s part of it, isn’t it? You don’t have to apologize for not feeling well.”

Hoseok raises himself up as well, and notices that even sitting up straight as he is, Hyunwoo still looms inches above. 

“I don’t mean to be…difficult.” Hoseok says. He fiddles with an edge of the blanket with his nervous hands. 

“You’re not ‘difficult’, Hoseok, so don’t say that. But maybe if, instead of keeping everything bottled up inside, you shared some with me? It can’t hurt, can it?”

“It definitely can.” It slips out before Hoseok can stop it, but he finds himself unwilling to try and take it back. If Hyunwoo wants to listen, then he’ll speak. And pick up the pieces afterwards. “It can and it has.”

Hyunwoo sighs again. He looks like he very much wants to reach across the foot separating them to hold Hoseok, but he doesn’t. Hoseok appreciates that in this moment.

“So alphas have hurt you before. Is that what this is about?”

Hoseok doesn’t flinch, but the words hit him with force, and make him shiver. He nods.

“And you’re afraid I’ll do the same thing?”

Hoseok stops at this. Moving, blinking, maybe even breathing. Is that what he’s afraid of? He doesn’t know. He knows he has fear, but not where it’s coming from. 

“Maybe… maybe not that, specifically,” he says.

“Okay,” Hyunwoo breathes. He sounds relieved, and glad at Hoseok’s engagement. “Okay, that’s good. What is it, then?”

Hoseok thinks. He doesn’t look at Hyunwoo, keeps his eyes on the comforter, on the way his own pale hands almost glow in the crimson-tinged blackness. What is he afraid of?

“I’m…” He nibbles his lip. Why is talking so hard? “I’m not afraid of you. I think I’m more afraid of, of being disappointed again. Of being made a fool of. I hate that.” His throat is tight and watery, and he hurries to scrape his wrists against his eyes before they can get any more teary.

Hyunwoo takes a moment to reply. He weighs his words, his careful selection obvious on his face when Hoseok dares to take a peek. Hoseok can’t deny his relief that Hyunwoo hadn’t immediately tried to offer platitudes and shallow promises. His rumination is a comfort.

“I don’t have a lot of friends,” Hyunwoo eventually says. Surprised, Hoseok stills and listens carefully. “Not real ones, anyway. People know my name, and my grades, and my medals, and they want to be known as someone who is close to me.”

He takes a moment to swipe a hand over his face, laughing bitterly into it. “God, I sound so arrogant.”

Hoseok doesn't think, he just reaches out and pulls that big hand away. He pulls it into his lap, and holds it between his own. It’s cool and steady in his grip, as is Hyunwoo’s gaze on his face. He nods shortly, coughs a bit, and continues.

“I don’t blame them for it. This world is competitive, and I have an edge most don’t. It’d be selfish of me to begrudge others for wanting to take advantage of it too.”

Hoseok doesn’t agree, but keeps his mouth shut.

“You, on the other hand, have people around you that care about you, so much, and love you with all they have. I don’t doubt that any one of them, alpha or omega, would do anything in their power to protect you. You know what that means?”

Hoseok, sniffling, shakes his head.

“It means you’re loved, Hoseok. Lovable. Whoever treated you badly in the past is the fool, not you. I would never betray your trust, if not because that’s objectively terrible, then because this Kihyun guy sounds like he wouldn’t hesitate to kill me if I did.”

Despite himself, Hoseok giggles. It’s wet and breathy and it hitches almost like a sob, but he’s smiling around it, so Hyunwoo smiles too. Hoseok fiddles with Hyunwoo’s fingers some more, needing an excuse to avoid Hyunwoo’s eyes, his open face. His own eyes must be ringed red and puffy, likely reflecting the billboards devilish gleam. He’s grinning still, and doesn’t try to stop it.

He feels lighter, but not in the hollowed out, empty sort of way he’s been feeling. Now it’s the weightless kind, like a dandelion seed dancing in the sunlight, or a shed feather defying gravity on a wind gust. Even so, something still bothers him.

“You are too, you know?” Hoseok sniffs. “Lovable? Anyone who can’t see that doesn’t deserve to be called your friend.”

Hyunwoo holds his eyes for a long moment after this, silently watching him. Hoseok’s doesn’t allow himself to look away, keeping the contact, trying to get his seriousness across. It’s only when Hyunwoo clears his throat that Hoseok notices how those arresting eyes had become glittery and wet.

“Then I guess I’m not wrong in considering you one, am I?,” Hyunwoo asks. He’s still smiling as well, and his eyes are all sincerity underlain with hope.

The hand between his is limp, and pliant. Hoseok slides his own fingers in between the longer ones, pressing their palms together with no space for air between them.

“No, I don’t think you are,” Hoseok answers softly. 

In the dark, cast in red halos and hushed quiet, the two of them settle beside each other, and drift softly into a dreamless sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> one more chap after this folks *thumbs up* and i promise seokkie suffers a lot less in the next one lol


	4. Chapter 4

The tail ends of Hoseok’s heat weeks have always been both mild and exhausting.

His body is desperate for rest after fighting fevers, cramps, and migraines for days on end, and takes it in the form of hours upon hours of unconsciousness. He sleeps the entire fifth day, and most of the sixth, becoming one with his mattress and working up a legendary bed head that he thinks he might have heard Hyunwoo snap a picture of at some point, though he can’t be sure. 

Hyunwoo wakes him for small meals, mostly cut up fruit and granola bars that get fed to him in pieces. Too out of it to feel any shame, Hoseok lets himself be fed and watered, flopping down and passing out as soon as Hyunwoo says it’s okay. His sleep is uninterrupted by dreams for the most part, though he sometimes swears he can feel phantom touches ghosting over him, his arms and back. They’re never enough to fully rouse him, thankfully, and he keeps on slumbering like a downed log until his body has had enough.

This happens at just before dinner time on day six, when he finally wakes up and doesn’t immediately turn over and go back to sleep.

He feels comfortable and rested, swaddled in blankets and with the orangey haze of evening sunlight illuminating the room. He smiles unconsciously. His body feels as good as new, if not a little stiff. He’s even lost his high temperature, as he finds out by rubbing his cheek against his shoulder and finding it cool to the touch. 

He sits up and stretches languidly, warm but not heat-warm, feeling his muscles wake up and purr at finally being allowed to move. His spine pops like a toy gun firing off blanks, and his shoulders give such resounding pops themselves they almost seem to echo throughout the room. His satisfied groan is chest deep. 

Now sitting up and as pleased as a kitten with cream, he itches his scalp and looks over at Hyunwoo’s side of the bed. It’s empty, obviously given the time of day, but his glasses are placed neatly on the bedside table. There’s a book beneath them, with a torn magazine page acting as a bookmark. The sight makes his smile grow, and a tingly balminess fills his chest. 

Hoseok then remembers the last conversation he’d had with Hyunwoo almost two days ago now, in this very bed, choking on his own words. He remembers Hyunwoo’s permeating calm, his assuredness, his sincerity. He feels as if his cheeks might tear if he were to smile any wider.

He doesn’t feel embarrassed as he’d feared, doesn’t feel vulnerable or picked over like a skeleton in the desert. 

He feels secure. 

For the first time in a long time, Hoseok feels something towards an alpha that isn’t suspicion, nor brotherly love.

No, there is absolutely nothing brotherly about how Hoseok feels about Hyunwoo.

Suddenly giddy, he stifles a giggle into his palm.

He’s just crawling out of bed, orienting himself carefully as his body adjusts to being fully upright, when his phone, charging on the bedside table, starts ringing. He contemplates ignoring it, eager to see Hyunwoo again. But then he catches sight of the name on the screen, and scrambles to answer it before it goes to voicemail.

“Kihyunnie!”

“What’s up, hyung?” The alpha’s voice is gruff but sounds pleased all the same. “You sound good, how’re you feeling?”

“I feel amazing, actually.” Hoseok flips back onto the mattress, worming back into the warm spot he’d left. Hearing his best friend’s voice again after a week only serves to brighten his already sunny mood.

Kihyun hums flatly at his answer. Hoseok picks up some background voices, and the squeak of hundreds of shoes and tiny wheels on linoleum. Echoey, an overhead voice announces delays and departure times.

“Did you just get off the plane?” Hoseok hugs his pillow to his chest for lack of anything else to squeeze. “Did you call me first thing?”

Kihyun scoffs at Hoseok’s touched enthusiasm.

“Of course I did. I had to make sure that beef-for-brains alpha is treating you right.”

Hoseok feels indignant on Hyunwoo’s behalf. “You know he’s only a couple of points away from being valedictorian, right?” 

“Irrelevant.” The phone is shuffled about as Kihyun gets his bags situated on a trolley. “Answer the question.”

“You didn’t ask me a question-“

“Hoseok.” Hoseok can’t help but giggle into the receiver, prompting another sigh from the alpha on the other side. “You know what I mean.” There’s genuine concern beneath Kihyun’s feigned annoyance, so Hoeok sobers himself up. 

“I do.” He sighs, and hopes it doesn’t sound too dreamy. “And you have nothing to worry about. Seriously. Hyunwoo has been a perfect gentleman this whole time.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive. He’s been feeding me and cuddling me and we’ve been talking a lot, he’s actually super down to earth? And you should see his face whenever I compliment him Kihyunnie, he’s precious.”

After a moment, Kihyun hums again. This one is the most contemplative.

Hoseok sighs, and flops over onto his belly. “Right?”

“Hoseok, do you… like him?”

Hoseok barks a nervous laugh. “Of course I do! He’s a likable guy!”

“A likable alpha, you mean.”

“Well, yeah.” Hoseok starts picking at a loose thread on his pillowcase. 

Kihyun grunts on the other side of the line, and Hoseok hears the sound of automatic doors sliding open, and the distinctive hustle and bustle of an airport sidewalk.

“Listen, I need to go, but I’m not done talking about this. I want to know more about this guy. I’ll call you later.”

“Okay.” Hoseok can’t help but get a little soft, reminded of Hyunwoo’s words from the previous night. “I’m glad you're back, Kihyunnie.”

“Me too, Seokkie.”

They say their goodbyes and love you’s, and hang up with a promise to meet up as soon as Kihyun gets over his post-flight sleepiness. Hoseok starts to get up, again, only to be interrupted, again, by the bedroom door opening, as a gentle whiff of rum swirls in. 

He looks over to see Hyunwoo poking his head in, looking sheepish.

“Is your call over? I didn’t want to interrupt.”

Hoseok wants to scream into his pillow, but does not.

“Yeah, yeah, come in. Did you need something?”

“Oh, no, I just brought you something to eat.” Hyunwoo walks in with a couple of granola bars in one hand and a glass of orange juice in the other. Standing there in the doorway, wearing baggy sweatpants and an ‘Accounting Majors Do It Better’ sweatshirt, bare-footed and comfortable, Hyunwoo looks the best Hoseok has ever seen him.

He drops his head into his pillow with a wounded whimper, leaving Hyunwoo to look on in confusion.

Hoseok ends up munching on the granola bars while he watches Hyunwoo make himself an actual dinner, if instant udon counts. He feels pleasant and cozy, loose-limbed and agreeable. Free from his heat, the situation seems a lot less pressing, less immediate. He can relax against the kitchen counter, tossing loose granola at Hyunwoo’s face just to laugh at his lack of reaction. Fretting over the future is a lot harder when the present is so easy to get lost in.

Hoseok grabs a tangerine to snack on while Hyunwoo eats just to make the big guy feel a bit better at his lack of appetite, even if it’s the norm for him this late in the week. They sit on the sofa, barely enough room between them for Hyunwoo to lift the chopsticks to his mouth. 

Hoseok doesn’t flush whenever their skin brushes, though it’s a close thing. 

Hyunwoo yawns once he’s finished his meal, rolls his neck like it’s sore, making Hoseok pout in confusion. “Are you okay?”

Hyunwoo looks startled at the question, then realization dawns as he rubs his nape. “Just feeling a little restless. It’s been a while since I’ve skipped the gym this many days in a row.”

Hoseok groans in understanding. “I know what you mean.”

Hyunwoo then does that thing, that thing that makes Hoseok’s skin prickle like it’s being brushed by a gust of icy wind. His eyes trickle down over Hoseok’s body, following the contours and curves hinted at by the way his clothes fall on him. Hoseok feels paralyzed, a rabbit before a grizzly, frantically hoping he measures up.

When Hyunwoo’s eyes meet his once more, Hoseok’s are blown wide. Hyunwoo’s face is inscrutable.

“Do you ever work out with a partner?” He asks suddenly. Hoseok blinks. 

“Not really? My friends don’t like it, so I’m normally by myself.”

Hyunwoo fiddles with his empty bowl, though he doesn’t look away from Hoseok’s face. Hoseok thinks the rabbit analogy is still applicable, only now the grizzly is sitting on it’s haunches, twiddling it’s claws.

“Me neither. The swim team meets up in the mornings, but I’m alone in the evenings. If you’re free then maybe we could go together?” 

Hoseok has to be the one to break the eye contact, afraid that his smile will give him away.

“I’m fine with that.” More than fine. “It’s safer, you know, having a spotter.”

“Yeah, absolutely,” Hyunwoo says. He’s pink when Hoseok looks back up. “I know I’ll be leaving tomorrow, maybe we can try and figure out when to meet up before then? Or you can just, you know, text me. I don’t have a uh, preference, so.” 

Hyunwoo’s shy awkwardness is so endearing that Hoseok doesn’t even have room left in his body to get pouty about the reminder of Hyunwoo’s leaving. Holding his laughter behind his teeth is taking all of his concentration. Even the back of Hyunwoo’s neck is pink when he stands to put his dishes away. While Hoseok’s flushes leave him as pink as peach flesh, Hyunwoo’s tan skin make his more mauve, similar to the color of his lips. 

Now Hoseok sits, peachy cheeked behind his palms.

Hyunwoo goes to bed before Hoseok, saying goodnight with a yawn before trundling into the bedroom. Hoseok isn’t even a little bit sleepy thanks to his marathon heat naps, and stays up sitting on the sofa in the darkened living room, eating the apple slices Hyunwoo had prepared for him earlier. The tv is on, though really just to illuminate the space enough for Hoseok to see, but not enough to shine down the hallway like the lamp would. 

In his lap, Hoseok flips his phone back and forth between his hands. He’s waiting for Kihyun’s call, having received a text earlier to prepare for it. A strange nervousness fills him with anxious moths, bumping around in his belly. He never feels this way before speaking with Kihyun, has never been anything but totally comfortable with the younger alpha. It doesn’t take him puzzling over it long, however, before he realizes the source.

It’s because he knows that the subject will be Hyunwoo. Not only that, but, for the first time, Hoseok wants Kihyun to like him. He wants Kihyun to approve of this new person in his life, this new alpha, instead of wanting his support in hating him. 

It’s new, and it’s what’s making him nervous.

The ringing of his phone from his lap startles him enough that he fumbles it onto the floor, and jerks to grab it. He hurries to press it to his ear, heart thudding double time, a stilted laugh his greeting to his friend.

“Um. Hello to you too.”

Hoseok gathers himself. Not the best start.

“Sorry, I dropped the phone,” he admits. Kihyun snorts at him, but lets it go easily enough.

“So.” His voice is all business, making Hoseok unconsciously correct his posture. “Tell me about this Hyunwoo guy.”

“Okay, well, what do you want to know?”

“I know of him, obviously, the way people fawn over him.” The words themselves could sound spiteful if Hoseok didn’t know that Kihyun doesn’t indulge pettiness. “But none of that means anything if he’s not the same in reality. I just wanna know what’s different about him that’s made you drop your guard like this.”

Special, Hoseok hears, What’s special about him that makes him worthy of your trust?

He thinks carefully, knowing Kihyun won’t accept a superficial answer. Kihyun waits patiently for him to speak on the other side of the line.

“It wasn’t immediate,” he says finally. He thinks back on the first meeting, the first day spent together. “His reputation didn’t hurt, I guess, but I wanted to see if he’d live up to it.” Kihyun makes a noise of approval, but doesn’t interrupt further. “He was and has been a gentleman, though, in so many ways. He never tried to, you know, force anything-“

“That doesn’t make him a gentleman, Hoseok, we’ve been over this-“

“Let me finish!” Kihyun huffs, but falls quiet. “As I was saying. He never tried anything like that, and he listens when I speak, and he feeds me, and he even carried me a couple times.”

Kihyun whistles. “Damn, so he is as strong as people say.”

“Hey,” Hoseok says, wounded. He turns peachy again in the half darkness. “But seriously, at one point he, uh, asked me if I wanted to make a nest?” Hoseok laughs a little, but it’s a bitter sound. “And you can expect how well that went.”

“Oh,” Kihyun says. Hoseok can practically picture the way his eyebrows must be drawn together in his mind’s eye, the way his face would pinch up in sympathy.

“That’s the thing though. He didn’t freak out? I told him I couldn’t and he just stood up, grabbed all my blankets, and made it for me. I was sitting there, probably covered in tears and snot and looking terrible, and he built it up around me.”

Before Kihyun can find his reply, Hoseok continues.

“And I might have let slip that I maybe wasn’t into alphas all that much, and he just let me talk. He never pushed me to explain, he even offered to listen if I ever wanted to tell him about it.” Without realizing, Hoseok’s voice has gone soft. “He makes me feel so comfortable, Kihyunnie. Honestly, if it weren’t for his scent, I could forget he’s an alpha.”

Kihyun is quick to reply. “But he is, and forgetting that isn’t going to make it stop being true.”

“I know!” Hoseok defends. He quiets himself. “I know. That’s the scary part, actually. I don’t think I want to forget.”

Kihyun goes still on the other side of the line. Contemplative. Hoseok waits as patiently as he’s able, though that doesn’t say much. He feels like a weight has been lifted off of his chest, only for a different one to fall into its place. Kihyun’s opinion means a lot to him, he trusts it. He’s held Hoseok together every single time he’s fallen apart.

Hoseok’s attention is recaptured with a sigh from Kihyun’s end. 

“I want to say don’t rush into this, but I know that’s not how you do things. Not these things, at least. Being completely honest here?” That’s what Hoseok both wants, and fears. “I think that this could be good for you.”

Hoseok gapes openly into the darkness, knowing that Kihyun can’t see him. He continues.

“I don’t want the shit you’ve been through to keep you from being happy anymore. If Hyunwoo is the kind of alpha you think he is, then I say give him a shot.”

Hoseok has to clear his throat a few times before answering, prompting an embarrassed ‘my god, hyung,’ from Kihyun.

“I really wanna make it work this time, Kihyunnie,” he says tightly. Kihyun gentles him with a quiet hum before he can actually start getting emotional. 

“We’ll help you.”

Hoseok can’t help an ironic little giggle. “Usually, you’d be offering to kick someone’s ass right about now.”

“Well, maybe my ass kicking days are finally over. Maybe I can retire from being your personal bodyguard for good this time, that sounds pretty nice.” Hoseok pouts vapidly.

“But you love protecting me.” 

Kihyun grunts. Hoseok decides to stop picking on him and lets him go to catch up on the sleep he lost while wrangling his tiny cousins for a week. Once he’s hung up, Hoseok spends a moment just sitting, gaze lost in a shadowy corner. His body is finally aware of the chill, so he drags one of the throw blankets Hyunwoo had been using earlier off of the back of the couch, and methodically spreads it out over himself. A flicker of whiskey tickles his nose. It makes him long for the real thing.

Despite his active mind and even more active body, he finds the pull towards his bedroom irresistible. He’s careful to creep quietly down the hall, pushing open the door with all the caution of a mouse. 

Hyunwoo is sleeping on his side facing the window, his back to the door rising and settling evenly. He’s shirtless judging by the tops of dark shoulders Hoseok can see, though the rest of him is huddled soundly beneath the comforter.

When Hoseok puts a knee up to crawl onto the mattress, Hyunwoo snuffles, but otherwise remains silent. Hoseok is quick to shimmy beneath the blankets and scoot over to him. Seemingly as broad as the bed itself, Hoseok plasters himself along Hyunwoo’s back, curling his arms over and beneath him, fitting his thighs up into the hollows behind Hyunwoo’s. He breathes in the scent of Hyunwoo’s nape, his nose jabbed at by the stiff little hairs at the bottom of his scalp, forcing an airless giggle out of him. Cozy, content, Hoseok presses the lightest peck to the place that he’d sniffed.

Beneath his arms, goosebumps rise on Hyunwoo’s bare flesh.

The next morning is quiet.

There’s an odd heaviness to the atmosphere, making it hard for Hoseok to open his mouth and speak, unwilling to try and take the brunt of the weight. Hyunwoo must feel the same way, as he’s already showering when Hoseok wakes, and stays silent beyond a soft ‘Good morning’ when Hoseok finds him in the kitchen afterwards. 

They cook breakfast together for once, Hoseok standing to Hyunwoo’s left, fetching ingredients and seasonings. When he hands them over and their fingers brush, his lungs seize up. After the third time it happens, Hyunwoo sets his spatula down with a clatter.

He reaches out, but hesitates. The air itself seems to sag with anticipation. Slowly, Hoseok steps an inch closer. Hyunwoo’s hand settles across the back of his neck, draws him slowly closer. For one unbearable second, Hoseok thinks he’s going to be kissed.

But Hyunwoo only tilts his head up, and takes a cursory sniff of Hoseok’s hair before leaning back and releasing him.

“No more heat scent,” he says. “Just checking.”

Something about that makes a silly burble of laughter spill past Hoseok’s lips with a sputter. “Yup,” He titters. 

Hyunwoo nods importantly, jerkily, and hurries back to his cooking. Hoseok makes an aborted excuse before running to his bedroom and screaming onto his pillow.

After this exchange the tension is absolved somewhat, though Hyunwoo’s face is constantly pinched in a little, as though he’s trying to keep himself from saying something. Hoseok tries not to think about it. Hyunwoo has been so good this whole week about not pushing him, respecting his boundaries, he can only do the same. 

It’s when he starts packing up his things, however, that Hoseok’s waiting pays off. 

“I’ve had a really nice time this week,” Hyunwoo blurts out abruptly, dropping the T-shirt he’d been folding onto Hoseok’s bed. His eyes stay resolutely on the floor. “I mean, not like I was- that was insensitive. I liked spending time with you, independent of you being sick. Sorry.”

Hoseok is endeared beyond belief. “Don’t apologize.”

Hyunwoo’s eyes flash to meet his for the slightest second before falling back down, apparently scared away by the stupid grin that Hoseok can’t hope to conceal. 

“What I’m trying to say is that I like you, a lot, and I want to take you on a date.” His face pinches in again, and he looks up to make steady eye contact this time. “But I know that you have issues with alphas, and I will back off if you want me too. Tell me to leave, and I’ll never bring it up again.”

Hoseok’s throat is too tight to speak. Too many emotions to name whirl in a maelstrom within him. He wrings his hands together, and shuffles his feet. Hyunwoo just watches him, posture non-threatening, waiting for his decision. As if it’s something Hoseok has to even think about.

“You know,” Hoseok finally manages to say. “You’re the only alpha that’s ever given me the option to turn you down.”

Hyunwoo scent spikes sourly, but his expression doesn’t change. “I’m sorry for that.”

Hoseok waves it away. An apology wasn’t the point. 

“I’m just telling you so you know that I’m being totally genuine when I say that I would love to go on a date with you.”

Hyunwoo looks almost like a cartoon character, the way he somehow lights up while staying as unassuming as he possible. “You’re sure-“

“I’m sure.”

Hyunwoo looks away, but this time it's to smile down at his feet, big hands fumbling to start folding his shirt again on impulse. Hoseok moves to help him, and revels in the little smile Hyunwoo shoots at him as he hands him one of his hoodies. 

Hyunwoo leaves an hour after that. He makes sure he has all of his things, takes another transparent ‘cursory sniff’ to be sure that Hoseok is freed of all heat, and walks out. He hesitates at the doorway for a moment, looking like he wants to touch Hoseok, his hands hovering like they want to wrap around him. Hoseok waits, breath bated, only for Hyunwoo to wimp out. He waves instead, shy, before turning and heading out. 

Hoseok stands half in, half out of his doorway until Hyunwoo makes it to the end of the hall, his backpack the last thing Hoseok sees as he rounds the corner and disappears. When Hoseok steps back in and closes the door, a trace of spiced liquor remains, like a quiet signature. He takes a heaving breath, trying to memorize it. A grin twists his lips before he can stop it.

Son Hyunwoo confessed to him.

How is this his life. 

It’s a conscious effort not to skip back to his bedroom. He throws himself into his bed, still wonderfully fragrant, and scrambles for his phone. He considers waiting for a bit, calming himself down some maybe, but dismisses those thoughts almost immediately.

He fires off a quick text into one of his group chats and then hops to the bathroom to take a quick shower. He knows he doesn’t have much time before his apartment is mobbed, and makes the most of what he has left to make himself presentable.

Changkyun is practically vibrating when Hoseok opens the door for him only fifteen minutes later.

“Give me every sordid detail right. Now. I’ll know if you leave something out, hyung, I swear to god I will smell it on you if you keep anything from me-“

“I’m not saying anything until the others get here,” Hoseok is quick to shut him down. Changkyun pouts, but hugs him tightly anyways. He hums from where he’s tucked into Hoseok’s shoulder, sniffing like a puppy. It tickles, but Hoseok doesn’t push him away. 

“I love when you don’t wear blockers, hyung, you smell like summertime.”

Hoseok tries not to preen. 

He’s just got Changkyun detached from him and nudged towards the living room when the door is thrown open behind them. 

“Where’s my baby?” Minhyuk shouts, arms spread wide. Hoseok grabs the front of his shirt and yanks him into the entryway, embarrassed by his spectacle, but too happy to see him to scold him any. He lets the skinny alpha squeeze him to his bird-boned chest, politely ignores the sniffing as he searches for the same heat sourness as Hyunwoo had. Once he can feel Minhyuk’s worry abate at his healthy scent, he ushers him over to Changkyun to grab at Hyungwon, who had stayed back outside the door, waiting his turn to be snuggled. 

Hoseok rewards him by squeezing him so hard that he squeaks. 

“Where’s Kihyun?” Hyungwon asks once all of them make it into the living room. Hoseok readjusts Changkyun on his lap so that he can answer without speaking directly into his ear. 

“He and I talked on the phone yesterday. I know he’s still tired, so we’re gonna have lunch tomorrow.”

“Who cares about him,” Minhyuk interrupts. “This is a meeting about a different alpha, right?”

Hoseok’s answering grin is too smug to conceal. Changkyun smacks his shoulder with a shrill laugh. Even Hyungwon has a shit-eating grin on his face where he sits on the couch, his arms crossed. 

“I knew it, I knew this was gonna turn out like this!” Changkyun squirms happily. “This is all thanks to me, I accept gratitude in the form of cuddle time.”

Hoseok snuggles Changkyun tighter to his chest. The younger omega purrs shortly. 

“Nothing’s really happened yet,” Hoseok is quick to say. “We’re gonna start working out together, and he did ask if I wanted to go on a date sometime, but-“

“A date!” Minhyuk crows. “A date with Son Hyunwoo!”

“When was this?” Hyungwon pipes up.

“Just earlier this morning. You guys are the first to know.”

Another round of excited chatter. The others grill Hoseok endlessly about how the week had gone, about Hyunwoo’s attitude and what he was like behind closed doors, out of the view of the adoring public. When he gets to the part about the near-disastrous nesting episode, the others quiet down considerably. As Hoseok is telling them about how well Hyunwoo had taken it, he gets distracted by a sniffle from his lap. 

He looks hurriedly to Changkyun’s face, which is pinched in towards the middle. 

“Kyun?” Minhyuk asks, voice so soft. 

Changkyun is the type to get annoyed whenever he gets teary, and his pout turns grumpy the more attention is directed at him. Hoseok strokes his hip while he wipes aggressively at his eyes. 

“I’m just so happy,” he grumbles, watery. Once his eyes are dry he looks at Hoseok, and cups his cheeks in his tear-sticky palms. “Hoseok hyung deserves someone like Hyunwoo hyung more than anyone.”

Hoseok, overflowing with affection and love and thankfulness for his friends, presses smacking kisses all over Changkyun’s face in lieu of saying anything. 

Minhyuk speaks up, grabbing back the giggling pair’s attention. “He’s right, you know.”

“We all feel that way,” Hyungwon says. Minhyuk nods.

“We know you’ve had a hard time, Hoseok. More than anyone, we’ve seen you hurt time and time again and been unable to help you.”

Hoseok opens his mouth to rebut that, to say that they’ve helped more than he ever could have asked for, but Minhyuk raises a hand, and his mouth shuts on its own. 

“We’ve tried our best, but we can’t love you the way that someone like Hyunwoo can. So we’ll be with you every step of the way.”

“Though this time I get the feeling that you won’t need us as much.” Hyungwon uncrosses his arms to clasp his hands in his lap. He’s the most uncomfortable with grand gestures, with baring himself emotionally, always fidgeting whenever talk turns sensitive like this. 

Hoseok speaks around his heart in his throat. “I’ll always need you guys, you’re my best friends.”

The others snicker at his warbly voice. 

“We know that, hyung,” Changkyun says. “-but you deserve someone like Hyunwoo hyung. That’s all we’re saying. You couldn’t get us to leave you even if you wanted to, so don’t even think about it.”

The room erupts in watery giggles.

“Good thing Kihyunnie isn’t here to ruin everything with his emotional constipation,” Minhyuk says. “Hyungwonnie over here is enough.”

“Hey!”

Hoseok watches as the alpha and omega start squabbling on the couch, a mess of bony elbows and giggles. He takes a deep breath, gathers the scents of three happy bodies into his lungs and holds it there, treasures it. He lets Changkyun in to scent him a little bit, comfortable and warm and happy. He feels like something he’s held within him, some big, black, ugly mass of negativity and self-loathing and fear, is starting to shift. It’s being chipped away at, and cracks are starting to form. It’s not gone, it’s too big for it to just dissipate thanks to a little romance and some good friends. But it’s no longer just sitting and weighing him down, clouding his judgement and pulling veils of suspicion and distrust over his eyes. 

He breathes a little easier on his next exhale.

The next day, noon finds him taking the bus to a restaurant a little further from campus than he usually goes. He’s sufficiently bundled up for the weather, finally, in a beanie that he’s pulled down over his ears, and a heavy fleece-lined jacket buttoned up to his throat. 

He’s got just enough time to make it off the bus, across the busy street, and into the little noodle house before he’s late. It’s quaint and plain-fronted, tucked in between a barbershop and a pretty little boutique. Inside, the familiar smell of bone broth and coriander puts instant color into Hoseok’s cheeks. He looks over and catches sight of the back of Kihyun’s head, floating above a hand-knitted scarf at one of the tables pushed right up next to the register.

“Kihyunnie!” The shop is otherwise empty, so Hoseok doesn’t feel sheepish about his volume. He trots over to grab Kihyun up in a bone-crushing hug.

Kihyun takes it like a champ. Once he’s released, he gives Hoseok a fond smile. Hoseok thinks he still looks a little tired, but he’s also got that lit-from-within happiness that comes from spending time with his extended family. 

“It’s good to see you, little guy,” Kihyun says.

Hoseok tolerates the nickname as he’s done for years. 

“I ordered already, mom will have it out soon.”

Hoseok’s lips purse together. He tries to peak back into the kitchen, but he can’t see anything beyond the borders of the small privacy curtain hung up in the doorway. “I haven’t been out here since before you left, do you think she’ll be mad at me?”

Hoseok yelps when Kihyun delivers a soft smack to the back of his head. 

“Mom can’t get mad at you, she coddles you too much. She’ll probably just scold me for leaving you alone during your heat.”

Hoseok can admit that it’s true; Miss Yoo does have an extremely soft spot for him. She’s an extremely sweet older omega woman, with a witty tongue and quick hands. Ever since Kihyun had first introduced him, she’s claimed that Hoseok is the omega child she never had (Kihyun and his older brother both being alphas), and dotes on him like he was her own. Being so far away from his own mother, Hoseok has always soaked up all the love and attention she gives him, often to Kihyun’s annoyance.

“Maybe you deserve it,” Hoseok sniffs.

He regrets it when Kihyun’s face falls minutely. “If I could’ve stayed…”

“No,” Hoseok stops him. “I’m not upset, you know that.”

Kihyun sighs, but the gloominess leaves his face enough for Hoseok to smile again. “I know. I do wish I could have been here, though. I missed my opportunity to carry you around without you fretting.”

“Carry me! More like drag me around with those little stick arms.”

“Hey, hey, hey,” a familiar, ageless voice calls from the kitchen. The two men immediately correct their posture as Kihyun’s mother pushes through the curtain, a tray carrying two steaming clay bowls held level at her waist. “Don’t make fun of my son’s stick arms, he got them from his father.”

Hoseok hurries to meet her where she comes around the counter, taking the heavy tray from her. She turns her cheek to the side, expecting a kiss, which Hoseok gives her without hesitation. “It’s good to see you again, Hoseok-ah. You look healthy.” She gives a generous squeeze to Hoseok’s biceps. 

“Mother,” Kihyun sighs. 

“Oh hush, let me admire my boy.”

“I’m your literal son.”

“I did my admiring of you when you were a baby. I’ve got to catch up with this one.” 

She follows Hoseok to the table, where he sets down the tray while Kihyun goes to grab utensils and napkins, and little metal cups of water from the self-serve station. He’d ordered samgyetang for the both of them, and Hoseok takes big greedy inhales of the wonderful aroma of chicken and ginseng and scallions. His body warms from his hair to his toes. 

“Hoseok-ah.” Miss Yoo lays a hand on Hoseok’s shoulder as he sits down. “Kihyunnie told me you just finished a difficult heat?”

Hoseok shoots a look at Kihyun where he sits a little too innocently across from him. He nods.

“Well, I put some extra garlic and honey in yours, just in case. It’ll get you some of your strength back.”

Hoseok’s heart warms to match the rest of him. He rests a hand over the one on his shoulder, and thanks her with as much sincerity as he can muster. She waves it off in her predictable way, and putters back into the kitchen. Hoseok turns back to raise a brow at the alpha starting in on his soup.

“You have the cheapest mouth out of anyone I know.”

Kihyun baulks. “She asked! And it’s not like you wouldn’t have told her anyway.” He goes back to slurping. Hoseok can’t even argue, and so he starts in on his own. For a moment it’s just smacks and slurps as the two warm their bellies with the delicious broth and perfectly seasoned chicken. Hoseok’s does have a particularly sweet and mellow flavor, one that he can practically feel heartening his immune system. 

Once they’ve gotten some food in their stomachs, they sit back to sip on their water and talk. Kihyun brags about how big his niece has gotten, saying that she’s much bigger than her cousins were at her age, and that she’s growing into the same bossy little alpha as he had been as a toddler. Hoseok just listens with a smile on his face. As much as he missed his friend being gone, it’s hard to reconcile that feeling with the smiling face sitting across from him now. 

“Enough about that, though,” Kihyun eventually interrupts himself, “- I want to know more about Son Hyunwoo. Minhyuk said that he asked you on a date?”

Hoseok jolts. He knows his cheeks must be filling in red, and so he cups them. Kihyun crosses his arms and waits for his answer. 

“Perhaps?”

“So, yes. What’s going on there?”

“He asked me on a date, I said yes, that’s the end of it. End of story.” Hoseok is being vague half to tease Kihyun, half out of genuine embarrassment. But even so, he can’t ignore the tickling happiness that lives in his ribs. Kihyun looks unimpressed. 

He decides it's time to ask the hard questions, apparently, as the next words out of his mouth make Hoseok scramble for an answer. 

“Why did you say yes?”

“Because… he’s different, I guess.”

“Because he told you he was different?”

“No!” Hoseok leans forward, emphatic. “He’s proven it to me! The way he acts, his history with omegas, the feelings he’s shared with me, he’s not like the others. I know he’s not.”

His voice doesn’t break at the mention of ‘the others’, he doesn’t stutter over it. Kihyun’s eyes widen just a bit when he notices. 

“Hyunwoo never made me uncomfortable at all, and it was obvious that he wanted me to feel safe.” Hoseok laughs breathily, a little disbelievingly. “He even apologized for asking me out, Kihyun. He said all I had to do was say so, and he would leave me alone if that’s what I wanted.” Another little laugh, this one wet. “No one else ever cared what I wanted.”

Kihyun’s own eyes are glossy when he leans in and grabs for Hoseok’s hands. Kihyun’s are just a little bit larger, and softer, and so familiar.

“You really do like him then, hyung?”

“I do, Kihyunnie.”

Kihyun holds eye contact for a long moment. He’s searching, for what, Hoseok isn’t sure. He seems to find it regardless, as he eventually sits back in his chair, blinking rapidly while he takes a hearty slurp of his soup.

“We better meet this guy, then. I want to see it for myself. That he’s not an asshole.” Kihyun always speaks in clipped little fragments whenever he wants to be supportive, but struggles to show it. It makes Hoseok happy, but also curdles something in his belly. He frowns.

“You shouldn’t have to worry about me like this. I’m sorry you’re always dragged into my problems.”

Kihyun finishes his water with a healthy gulp. Hoseok jumps when he slams the cup down on the tabletop.

“Didn’t you say something earlier? That it’s me who’s always dragging you?”

Hoseok snorts despite himself. Before he can say anything in reply, the curtain behind him flies open, and an indignant Miss Yoo stomps out.

“Who’s out here slamming my cups and chipping my tables!”

Hoseok points at Kihyun at the exact same time that the alpha points at him. When they notice they dissolve into belly-grabbing giggles, leaving Kihyun’s mother to look on in exasperated fondness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> maybe someday we'll get to see that date! but as for now, this is the end ~ thank you so so much for making it this far, please continue to love showho!


End file.
